Sharing iPads May Have an Impact on Test Scores

iStock/Thinkstock(CHICAGO) — Conventional wisdom would suggest that kindergarteners who have to share iPads in a classroom would do poorer on standardized tests than classmates who have their own individual devices, but a new study suggests otherwise.

Researchers at Northwestern University compared the standardized test scores of kindergarteners at several Midwestern schools in the fall, prior to any iPad use, with spring scores after the devices were implemented.

The researchers found that over the course of a school year, kindergarteners at schools that had only enough iPads for students to share scored 32 points better than students with their own iPads and 27 points better than students with no iPads.

“Shared iPad students significantly outperformed both the 1:1 and non-iPad condition, suggesting it’s the collaborative learning around the technology that made the difference, not just the collaboration in and of itself,” says researcher Courtney Blackwell.

The study suggests that sharing devices rather than each student having his or her own may be a more effective and less expensive way of introducing technology into the classroom.

Experts not involved in the study caution that the survey was a quasi-experiment that did not include a control group and involved a small sample size with a population that was minimally diverse, mostly children of financially stable Caucasians.

The findings will be presented in May at the International Communication Association Conference.

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