Title: Measuring the meaningful use of ICT in schools: a learning environments attributes approach

Authors: C. Paul Newhouse

Addresses: Centre for Schooling and Learning Technologies, School of Education, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Abstract: Increasingly teachers and school leaders need to be sure that the investment in information and communications technologies (ICT) maximises the positive impact on learning. There has been much debate on how this impact on learning should be measured. As a result, a group of researchers developed a framework that can be used to describe and evaluate this impact in schools. This paper gives the rationale behind the key learning environment attributes dimension of this framework, and explains the rubric-based tool and statistical scale that were developed to facilitate the measurement of this dimension. Application of this approach, to measure the impact of ICT use on learning in a variety of studies has proved to be useful in providing data to guide the decisions of teachers and school leaders about the meaningful integration of ICT to support the learning of students.

Keywords: ICT usage; computers in schools; ICT integration; learning environments; information and communications technology; information technology; learning impact; educational technology; technology enhanced learning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTEL.2015.074187

International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, 2015 Vol.7 No.4, pp.309 - 325

Received: 04 Jul 2015
Accepted: 27 Aug 2015
Published online: 14 Jan 2016 *

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