The Effect of Computer-Assisted Learning on Students' Long-Term Development (WP-20-53)
Nicola Bianchi, Yi Lu, and Hong Song
In this paper, the researchers examine the effect of computer-assisted learning on students’ long-term development. They explore the implementation of the “largest ed-tech intervention in the world to date,” which connected China’s best teachers to more than 100 million rural students through satellite internet. The authors find evidence that exposure to the program improved students’ academic achievement, labor performance, and computer usage. They observe these effects up to ten years after program implementation. These findings indicate that education technology can have long-lasting positive effects on a variety of outcomes and can be effective in reducing the rural–urban education gap.