DO STUDENTS THAT HAVE COMPUTERS AT HOME GET BETTER GRADES IN SCIENCE AND MATH CLASS AT THE HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL? By Kelly Laura

Abstract  I am attempting to find out if high school students that have a personal home computer, and that use that computer to complete science and math homework, get better grades than those students that do not have a personal computer at home. I believe that there will be a relationship between home computer use and better grades in these classes. In one study the results showed that “access to home computers and purposeful computer use had positive effects on the science performance (Chang & Kim, 2009).” This study looked at how students that used computers were effected by that use. I believe that since this study found results close to what I believe will be the results of my study, I feel that their results are relevant to my study.

Abstract (cont.)  And another study came to similar conclusion but for the subject of math. This study looked for performance increases, or decreases, in students that were learning math on computers. They found that the students using computers did much better in math than those students that were learning math in the traditional manner. The researchers stated, “Large effect sizes were measured for all grade levels on all outcome measures. The results were statistically significant (Gulley, 2009)”. They found that the control group that learned math in the traditional manner showed little or no improvement.

Abstract (cont.)  If these studies separately found computer usage to be beneficial to students, then a study that looks at students that have, and do not have, computers at home could be beneficial to teachers and administrators.

Research Question  Does having a personal computer in a student’s home lead to that student achieving higher grades in science and math classes during their high school years?

Data Methodology  Participants  Approximately 150 students, grades 9-12, from 5 different counties in the state of Michigan, the counties consist of both urban and rural areas  Participants will come from a random sample of 500 students, 150 students will be chosen from that group based on Personal Interviews  The interview will be to find out about the student’s study habits, for this study I would like to find students that have good study habits, and a mixture of students that have a computer at home and some that do not

Data Methodology (cont.)  Instrumentation  Personal interviews and transcripts from high school science and math classes  Personal interviews will be conducted so that I will be able to find out about the study habits of the students  Transcripts from the science and math classes will be looked at, and the data will be recorded

Data Methodology (cont.)  Procedures  After the initial personal interview, an additional interview will take place at the end of the semester after grades are posted. This interview is to find out about how much time the students spent on their math and science homework  This will be a correlational descriptive study.

Data Methodology (cont.)  Data Analysis  I plan on conducting personal interviews of participants and looking at their transcripts. I will then take the data collected and record the number of students with that particular grade and put the data into charts  I will be looking at how students with, and without, a personal computer at home complete math and science homework  If generally students that have a personal computer at home achieve better grades on their math and science classes, it can then be inferred that having the computer at home does have an effect on the grades of students

Results  I believe that this study will find a correlation between students having a personal computer in their home and higher performance in science and math classes at the high school level. It stands to reason that students that have a computer in their home will be more likely to seek out information on the internet in order to complete assignments. If they are able to find out about assignments on their own through the internet then will be more likely to retain the knowledge that they have learned.

Discussion I feel that this study would impact the field of education by providing teachers and school administrators with the knowledge that technology is important for learning. This study may provide important information for school districts that wish to implement a student laptop initiative. If the results of the study were to show that having a computer for home use was extremely important for science and math achievement then many districts may have incentive to provide laptops for their students.

References Chang, M., & Kim, S. (2009). Computer access and computer use for science performance of racial and linguistic minority students. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 40(4), Gulley, B. (2009). A Computer based education (cbe) program for middle school mathematics intervention. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 28(4), Patten, Mildred. L. (2009). Understanding Research Methods: An Overview of the Essentials. Pyrczak Publishing, 7 th edition.