More like rich students have more resources and time for their studies than poor students struggling to pay tuition.
how do socio-economic factors come into it at all if the school hands them out to each new student?
of course sample size is important - but I could have sworn the article said they compared test results from the entire class prior to use of iPads to that of the class after the start of everyone using iPads.
As with any other tool - effective use depends on how and why and where they are used. just handing everyone an iPad by itself is not necessarily going to make much difference - but they do enable the possibility of new and different ways of delivering information and interactions etc than even a traditional computer does.
Not enough. Bring the comparison between them all:
- Students using no computer.
- Students using iPad.
- Students using Linux.
- Students using Windows.
- Students using Mac.
Probably using Mac is much better than using the iPad for obvious reasons.
And randomly assign the students which device they use. Otherwise the same factors which lead them to choose their device may also be influencing their study habits. As long as they let students choose their device, especially if they are paying for it themselves, the results will be correlation, not causation.
how do socio-economic factors come into it at all if the school hands them out to each new student?
of course sample size is important - but I could have sworn the article said they compared test results from the entire class prior to use of iPads to that of the class after the start of everyone using iPads.
As with any other tool - effective use depends on how and why and where they are used. just handing everyone an iPad by itself is not necessarily going to make much difference - but they do enable the possibility of new and different ways of delivering information and interactions etc than even a traditional computer does.
Thats the cost to the school system, and includes the ipad, wifi for the school, textbooks, teacher training, etc. As some others have stated, and its how I read the email, the devices in the study were provided to the students. Again it would be nice to see the article post a link to the study so we could read it instead of making guesses.
Students using the Apple's iPad for their studies have been found to score higher than their paper-based peers and enjoy higher efficiency, according to a new study.
It could be that the iPad causes higher scores.
It could be that those who get higher scores feel the bug to get iPads.
It could be that some unrelated third factor causes some folks to both get high scores and get iPads.
Unless there was a control group, there is NO WAY to find any causal relationship. Those who buy iPads are self-selected. For example, maybe an unrelated third factor, like socioeconomic status, causes both the test scores than the purchases.
Unless there is a control group, and unless the participants are chosen randomly, there is NO WAY to establish cause and effect.
Think of this: It has been established that there are more accidental drownings when ice cream sales are at their peak. Ice cream does not cause drownings, nor does more drownings cause people to buy more ice cream. Instead, warm weather causes both phenomenon.
There is NO WAY to establish a cause and effect relationship without a control group and random selection of study participants.
why does one assume that smarts is reflected in buying an ipad? since when did following the sheeple to the Apple store become a sign of intelligence?
Back in the good old days, when Apple products were bought by only a few, the self-congratulatory meme was that Apple buyers were an elite group.
Times have changed. Apple now targets grandma and technophobes as their prime customer group. While the marketing strategy has changed, the meme seems to be alive and well among some fans.
There's a lot of "studies" shown and the papers that have been published. All I'm saying is studies done on 18 students at a private university yield statistically insignificant results. Everyone has their own thoughts about this but I recommend reading the studies from their original source. Don't think I dislike any iDevice, I just dislike how this "study" is reporting its results.
While the article doesn't make it completely clear, there's a strong implication that this study involves tracking the performance of students who have been provided iPads in their classrooms vs. students who have not.
If you follow the links back to University site, the studies completed use just that model-- for instance, tracking teacher performance in an iPad pilot program.
It seems fairly unlikely that a university or mobile learning outfit would simply identify existing self identified iPad users in a classroom and attempt to reach conclusions about student performance based solely on uncorrelated data from those students, since, as so many posters have been quick to point out, such data would be worthless.
What doesn't seem to have occurred to these posters is that educators aren't idiots, and anyone bothering to put the time and resources into a study of this sort are probably not going to commit such basic errors of methodology as to be dismissed out of hand.
While the article doesn't make it completely clear, there's a strong implication that this study involves tracking the performance of students who have been provided iPads in their classrooms vs. students who have not.
If you follow the links back to University site, the studies completed use just that model-- for instance, tracking teacher performance in an iPad pilot program.
It seems fairly unlikely that a university or mobile learning outfit would simply identify existing self identified iPad users in a classroom and attempt to reach conclusions about student performance based solely on uncorrelated data from those students, since, as so many posters have been quick to point out, such data would be worthless.
What doesn't seem to have occurred to these posters is that educators aren't idiots, and anyone bothering to put the time and resources into a study of this sort are probably not going to commit such basic errors of methodology as to be dismissed out of hand.
Thank you for saying this. Reading all the people that posted "correlation is not causation", all I could think was, a little knowledge is dangerous.
There's a lot of "studies" shown and the papers that have been published. All I'm saying is studies done on 18 students at a private university yield statistically insignificant results. Everyone has their own thoughts about this but I recommend reading the studies from their original source. Don't think I dislike any iDevice, I just dislike how this "study" is reporting its results.
Where on their site do you see that this study was done on 18 students?
According to the TUAW article the study hasn't been released yet but they got an exclusive look at the results, which they summarize.
The University site has a link to "iPad Studies" which describes a study in which "Thirty-eight secondary science teachers received iPad to determine whether and how iPad could be educationally effective", clearly an example of providing iPads to the cohort, not just willy-nilly asking which teachers were using iPads and imagining conclusion could be drawn from their results.
I don't see any info on the new study, which is presumably to be released in the near future.
The iPad isn't a laptop replacement. It's something students will have a long with a laptop.
And even still, not every student has a laptop. I, for instance, had to do all my work in the computer labs on campus, or at home on the family computer. Now I have enough money to buy a laptop for every room of my house, but that's beside the point. If I had money while I was in college, I would probably have had the luxurious items that made school work easier to do.
Comments
Exactly.
More like rich students have more resources and time for their studies than poor students struggling to pay tuition.
how do socio-economic factors come into it at all if the school hands them out to each new student?
of course sample size is important - but I could have sworn the article said they compared test results from the entire class prior to use of iPads to that of the class after the start of everyone using iPads.
As with any other tool - effective use depends on how and why and where they are used. just handing everyone an iPad by itself is not necessarily going to make much difference - but they do enable the possibility of new and different ways of delivering information and interactions etc than even a traditional computer does.
Not enough. Bring the comparison between them all:
- Students using no computer.
- Students using iPad.
- Students using Linux.
- Students using Windows.
- Students using Mac.
Probably using Mac is much better than using the iPad for obvious reasons.
And randomly assign the students which device they use. Otherwise the same factors which lead them to choose their device may also be influencing their study habits. As long as they let students choose their device, especially if they are paying for it themselves, the results will be correlation, not causation.
+1
Of course, I'd like to see the iPad plays an active role on education, rather than only playing games.
Agreed
how do socio-economic factors come into it at all if the school hands them out to each new student?
of course sample size is important - but I could have sworn the article said they compared test results from the entire class prior to use of iPads to that of the class after the start of everyone using iPads.
As with any other tool - effective use depends on how and why and where they are used. just handing everyone an iPad by itself is not necessarily going to make much difference - but they do enable the possibility of new and different ways of delivering information and interactions etc than even a traditional computer does.
It costs $500 per student
It costs $500 per student
Thats the cost to the school system, and includes the ipad, wifi for the school, textbooks, teacher training, etc. As some others have stated, and its how I read the email, the devices in the study were provided to the students. Again it would be nice to see the article post a link to the study so we could read it instead of making guesses.
Students using the Apple's iPad for their studies have been found to score higher than their paper-based peers and enjoy higher efficiency, according to a new study.
It could be that the iPad causes higher scores.
It could be that those who get higher scores feel the bug to get iPads.
It could be that some unrelated third factor causes some folks to both get high scores and get iPads.
Unless there was a control group, there is NO WAY to find any causal relationship. Those who buy iPads are self-selected. For example, maybe an unrelated third factor, like socioeconomic status, causes both the test scores than the purchases.
Unless there is a control group, and unless the participants are chosen randomly, there is NO WAY to establish cause and effect.
Think of this: It has been established that there are more accidental drownings when ice cream sales are at their peak. Ice cream does not cause drownings, nor does more drownings cause people to buy more ice cream. Instead, warm weather causes both phenomenon.
There is NO WAY to establish a cause and effect relationship without a control group and random selection of study participants.
Back when Apple ran it's own factories, the Macintosh II cost $4,000 and the Macintosh IIfx STARTING PRICE was $10,000.
Correlation does not establish causation.
It costs $500 per student
In other news, tuition fees have been increased starting this year, by exactly $500.
And perhaps the researchers on this study missed correlation ≠ causation because they were busy playing Angry Birds in Stats?
why does one assume that smarts is reflected in buying an ipad? since when did following the sheeple to the Apple store become a sign of intelligence?
Back in the good old days, when Apple products were bought by only a few, the self-congratulatory meme was that Apple buyers were an elite group.
Times have changed. Apple now targets grandma and technophobes as their prime customer group. While the marketing strategy has changed, the meme seems to be alive and well among some fans.
There's a lot of "studies" shown and the papers that have been published. All I'm saying is studies done on 18 students at a private university yield statistically insignificant results. Everyone has their own thoughts about this but I recommend reading the studies from their original source. Don't think I dislike any iDevice, I just dislike how this "study" is reporting its results.
Back when Apple ran it's own factories, the Macintosh II cost $4,000 and the Macintosh IIfx STARTING PRICE was $10,000.
Oh my, looking back that is pretty steep! I bought a lot of IIfx models all upgraded to the Mac RAM (8 MB I seem to recall).
If you follow the links back to University site, the studies completed use just that model-- for instance, tracking teacher performance in an iPad pilot program.
It seems fairly unlikely that a university or mobile learning outfit would simply identify existing self identified iPad users in a classroom and attempt to reach conclusions about student performance based solely on uncorrelated data from those students, since, as so many posters have been quick to point out, such data would be worthless.
What doesn't seem to have occurred to these posters is that educators aren't idiots, and anyone bothering to put the time and resources into a study of this sort are probably not going to commit such basic errors of methodology as to be dismissed out of hand.
While the article doesn't make it completely clear, there's a strong implication that this study involves tracking the performance of students who have been provided iPads in their classrooms vs. students who have not.
If you follow the links back to University site, the studies completed use just that model-- for instance, tracking teacher performance in an iPad pilot program.
It seems fairly unlikely that a university or mobile learning outfit would simply identify existing self identified iPad users in a classroom and attempt to reach conclusions about student performance based solely on uncorrelated data from those students, since, as so many posters have been quick to point out, such data would be worthless.
What doesn't seem to have occurred to these posters is that educators aren't idiots, and anyone bothering to put the time and resources into a study of this sort are probably not going to commit such basic errors of methodology as to be dismissed out of hand.
Thank you for saying this. Reading all the people that posted "correlation is not causation", all I could think was, a little knowledge is dangerous.
Go to acu.edu/connected
There's a lot of "studies" shown and the papers that have been published. All I'm saying is studies done on 18 students at a private university yield statistically insignificant results. Everyone has their own thoughts about this but I recommend reading the studies from their original source. Don't think I dislike any iDevice, I just dislike how this "study" is reporting its results.
Where on their site do you see that this study was done on 18 students?
The University site has a link to "iPad Studies" which describes a study in which "Thirty-eight secondary science teachers received iPad to determine whether and how iPad could be educationally effective", clearly an example of providing iPads to the cohort, not just willy-nilly asking which teachers were using iPads and imagining conclusion could be drawn from their results.
I don't see any info on the new study, which is presumably to be released in the near future.
Exactly.
More like rich students have more resources and time for their studies than poor students struggling to pay tuition.
Because an iPad is so much more than a laptop
lol just kidding, this is all nonsense
Because an iPad is so much more than a laptop
The iPad isn't a laptop replacement. It's something students will have a long with a laptop.
And even still, not every student has a laptop. I, for instance, had to do all my work in the computer labs on campus, or at home on the family computer. Now I have enough money to buy a laptop for every room of my house, but that's beside the point. If I had money while I was in college, I would probably have had the luxurious items that made school work easier to do.
Do you comprehend that?