Students who use little class technology are half advantage for those who do it every day | Instruction

Many educational researchers try to answer the question about why The student’s results in large international evaluations have decreased For a decade. The use of children and teenagers of cell phones and other individual devices They are in the spotlight. But the deputy director of the search for Esadecpol, Lucas Gortazar, warns that the use of technology in the classrooms of working, if it exceeds a certain point, also seems to be a factor that negatively influences performance. It is not, he says, to demonize technology in education, but avoid a reckless implementation and investigate more.

The three autonomous communities in which a higher percentage of students uses class technology on a daily basis, Señala GortazarBasque Country, Navarra and Catalonia, are those that have decreased most in the last decade in the Pisa report, which regularly evaluates students of 15 years in over 80 countries. In the Basque and Navarra country the average fall in the three Pisa tests – mathematics, reading and science – was 27 points and in Catalonia, 26, between 2012 and 2022.

Students of these territories use technology to work in class well above the Spanish average, while their use for recreational purposes outside the educational centers is quite similar to the average. At the same time, a causal investigation promoted by the Cotec and ISEK foundations, Published in a magazine specialized in 2023He concluded that Spanish students who are very frequent users of class technology (who use it all or almost every day) have a penalty in the mathematical test of 22.5 points compared to those who barely use it, which is equivalent to the school year.

This work, signed by researchers Lucía Gorjón and Ainhoa ​​OSés, reflects that students who use tics in the classrooms significantly reduce the national average on the field not only in Spain, but of the 22 OECD countries – a club made up of the most developed states in the world – who have analyzed. In the case of Spain, however, the results of the research reflect that moderate use (“several times a month”) “is related to a better performance in mathematics as regards a low or null use”. The difference between the two groups increases in this case to 32.5 points.

The conclusions of the article remain outside the socio -economic extraction of the students. While the negative impact of a very frequent use of class technology is worse for the most disadvantaged students (in 10 of the 17 autonomous communities and 19 of the 22 countries analyzed) and for girls who for children (in 13 of the 17 Spanish territories and in two thirds of the countries analyzed).

The authors point out that their causal study (based on the exploitation of the Pisa 2018 microded and published in the magazine Journal of Educational Computing Research) Swimmed to the mathematical test. But “at a descriptive level”, they add, they observed that the penalty for very intense users has been maintained in the scientific results and, above all, the reading, which leads them to suggest that the trend could be repeated in both cases once the characteristics of the students have been controlled.

The data continue to OSés, do not allow them to answer the question about why it is due that a very frequent use of technology implies lower performance. But, as a hypothesis, he states that the distraction effect “can play an important role, to influence his ability of attention and understanding” and that having to do “different things at the same time, the call multitaskingYou can also hinder “learning.

In any case, both OSés and Gortazar translates in any case, they continue to study to know, beyond the general advertisement associated with the time of use offered by this analysis Pisa, in the way they influence variable performance such as the type of technology used, the pedagogical purpose of its use and the level of training of teachers.

Digital tools

The Pisa report, organized by the OECD, collects abundant information that the international organization analyzes in subsequent publications, as well as serving as raw material for researchers. A document published by the OECD in 2024 (which used the data collected in the exams of the latest edition, 2022) He has updated information on the percentage of students who use “digital tools at least an hour a day for learning at school”. In Spain, the proportion is 50%.

The first three European countries classified in Pisa have lower percentages: Estonia (47%), Ireland (42%) and Switzerland (47%) – the following, Finland, is well above average (73%), but the fifth, Poland, is lower (45%) -. The average in the EU is 50%and, in the OECD, 55%.

Inside Spain, the three communities with more daily users are very distant from the state average: in Catalonia and in the Basque country it is 75%and of Navarra, 64%. The three communities have several things in common: they are one of the most perched incomes of Spain (which should increase their results), have a co -efficient language (which, especially in a context of increased population of the immigrant school, could have a certain effect on performance), and today, as well as the evaluation of an evaluation of the Basque Country) and occupy today, and to occupy, as well as the evaluation of a Spanish) and the Cassa, and the Cassa, as the case, An assessment, such as the evaluation of an evaluation, and the cashier, such as the Cassa, such as the Cassa, the Cassa, such as the evaluation of a Spanish) and the Cassa. Test.

The autonomous communities with fewer users of daily technology are Rioja (33%) and Castilla-la Mancha (34%)-with your home, but follow them very closely The three Spanish regions best classified in Pisa: Castilla y León (36%), Astuias (37%) and Cantabria (36%). Extremadura, which also has a low percentage of students who use technology in class daily (36%) is the second that has most improved its performance in Pisa in the last decade, behind Cantabria.

The educational results are, in any case, like a billiard table in which they are at the same time increasing in a multitude of balls. The weight of some factors is well known, like the big difference that makes the socio -economic and cultural level of the family in which children grow. In others, such as the effects of the use of class technology – which in Spain suffered acceleration in the first decade of the century and another after the pandemic, thanks to the European recovery funds – there is a lot to study.

Gortazar stresses that the current evaluation and research tools allow you to analyze not only how much technology is used in the classrooms, but also to do a fine examination, as “what type of technological tools are used and with what pedagogical purposes”. “The debate on the screens outside, the screens inside, which I do not believe that it contributes to the educational improvement”, adds Gortazar; “We know that technology can help and may not do it, the question is how.”