Computadores en las escuelas y desempeño cognitivo: un resumen de la investigación

This research summary describes what we know about the relationship between students’ use of computers at school and their cognitive test scores. It also briefly discusses the usefulness of teaching computer literacy in schools. While access to computers is a necessary condition for their use, access does not guarantee that students will use the computers, and getting students to use computers does not guarantee that they will use them in ways that improve their cognitive achievement. When students do use computers in school it is generally to search the Internet, work on group projects, or to use the Internet to do homework. Research shows that programs that increase the number of computers in schools have had little effect on students’ test scores. However, a growing body of research does suggest that when computers are used to provide instruction test scores in reading and math increase. This kind of computer instruction is not very common in most countries and even in the United States computer instruction is rarely routinely used in schools.