Investments in ICT and learning performance. An analysis on Italian panel data

In the last two decades major investments have been devoted to increase digital technology available in schools. Their stated goals include improving students’ learning achievements. However, researches in the field are still limited and their conclusions are mixed. Using institutional data from the Technology Observatory of the Italian Ministry of Education and SNV/INVALSI standardized tests (in Mathematics and Italian) administered to students during the final exams of lower secondary school in the 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2013-14 school years, this paper aims to estimate the impact of investments in ICT on average learning achievements. As far as we know, this is the first Italian study that uses institutional data at national level to investigate the impact of ICT on school performance. In particular, the presence of Interactive Whiteboards, wireless connection and mobile devices have been considered into the analysis. The study has been conducted applying fixed effects regression models.