Treffer: Understanding Quality Characteristics of EdTech Interventions and Implementation for Disadvantaged Pupils. Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis

The EdTech sector has seen rapid growth in the past decade, further catalysed by the Covid-19 pandemic that required many teachers and schools to turn to technology-based solutions to support learning over periods of school closures (Karboul, 2020). Since the 2020s, over two-thirds of schools in England have increased their use of technology, introducing new technologies or upgrading and expanding existing ones (CooperGibson Research, 2022). As a result, teachers are increasingly expected to integrate technology into their classroom practices, often linked to improving student attainment. However, current evidence on the effectiveness of EdTech interventions is best characterised as mixed, resulting in a lack of guidance on what practices actually work when using EdTech to enhance student learning outcomes (Pokhrel & Chhetri, 2021; West et al., 2023). This is especially true for disadvantaged students, with evidence simultaneously suggesting that their learning can benefit more from technology compared to their peers (McNally et al., 2016; Takacs et al., 2015), but also that technology can magnify learning inequality due to barriers disadvantaged students face in accessing it (Vicentini et al., 2022). Given these current conundrums, the authors worked with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) to systematically review existing EdTech evidence to analyse how the use of EdTech might raise student attainment, with particular consideration of how disadvantaged students might be impacted.

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