Home computer use and academic performance of nine-year-olds

AbstractA recent rise in home computer ownership has seen a growing number of children using computers and accessing the internet from a younger age. This paper examines the link between children's home computing and their academic performance in the areas of reading and mathematics. Data from the nine-year-old cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland survey is adopted for this study. The survey reveals that searching for information is a more popular activity among the children than communicating online. Through regression analysis we find that using a computer is positively and significantly associated with children's reading and mathematics scores in standardised tests. This result holds after controlling for multiple determinants of school performance. In addition, we investigate the effects of using various applications on the computer. Surfing the internet for fun, doing projects for school and emailing are associated with higher reading and maths test scores, while those who are permitted to use the computer unsupervised tend to have higher maths test scores. Instant messaging and downloading music or watching movies are negatively associated with both reading and maths scores. The results indicate that some forms of early computer use have significant associations with academic performance among children in primary school, although we could not establish the direction of causation definitively.Keywords: home computer useelementary educationacademic performance AcknowledgementsThe authors are grateful for comments received from two anonymous referees and from participants at an ESRI seminar and the Applied Microeconometrics and Public Policy Workshop at NUI Galway. Funding was received from the ESRI Programme of Research in Communications, which in turn is funded by contributions from Ireland's Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Commission on Communications Regulation. Growing Up in Ireland data have been funded by the Government of Ireland through the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs; and have been collected under the Statistics Act, 1993, of the Central Statistics Office. The Growing Up in Ireland Project has been designed and implemented by the joint ESRI-TCD Growing Up in Ireland Study Team. The sponsors had no role in the design of the study; the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; the writing of the report; or the decision to submit the paper for publication.Notes1.