Research in K-12 EdTech — What You Need to Know
This past May, the culmination of a year’s worth of research was presented at the first ever EdTech Efficacy Symposium. Perhaps the most crucial recent event in EdTech, the symposium was sponsored by several key stakeholders in education (pictured below).
When we attended the symposium, we realized there was a wealth of information that every stakeholder in the industry would appreciate. In this series of articles, we will break down the final 12 research reports which were published just this past week, highlighting the main points that you need to know.
The Role of Research in K-12 District Decision Making
Working Group A investigated how district leaders make decisions about educational technology purchases. Read the full report here.
What is driving districts’ purchasing decisions?
Driving these decisions are often forces beyond district control such as the trend toward each student having his or her own personal device, as well as state standards like Common Core. Interest in products is usually stated in terms of a district’s instructional philosophy, and how that product aligns accordingly, or already has research to prove that it fits the district’s intended areas of improvement.
What sources of information are used to make decisions?
There is consistent evidence showing that districts rely heavily on the opinions and inclinations of their teachers. Teachers’ thoughts are the ‘gut instinct’ in the decision-making equation, often resulting in rapid adoption or cancelling of an EdTech product subscription. If state standards or overarching district strategy are factors in play, then districts are more likely to look for indicators in prior research that the product fits those criteria.
What data are districts collecting to measure efficacy?
This depends on the type of EdTech tool that is purchased. For apps that provide access to content, data about how much the product was used is considered sufficient evidence that the product was having an impact. For apps that developed student skills, most districts look for data showing that student performance increased on the app itself, with fewer districts looking for evidence in data outside of the app, such as test scores. It’s important to note that districts with leaders who had an assessment or data focused position often created more elaborate plans to collect and measure data when evaluating EdTech tools.
Conclusions and Recommendations
To quote the study itself, “there are many questions that remain that suggest a number of next steps.” One of those next steps seems to be to conduct future studies using a broader demographic of schools in order to safely generalize results from the study.
To read the full list of recommendations for practitioners, entrepreneurs, policymakers, etc., read the full report here.
Follow us on Medium to stay updated as we summarize the remaining 11 research studies presented at the EdTech Efficacy Symposium 2017.
