basic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic and language skills), only penetrated with regard to a minority of the teachers. For instance, only 31 % of teachers believed that the aim of ICT use is to support the pupils’ writing skills, in spite of the fact that word-processing is used in education by 72% of teachers. Overall, evidence from the studies reviewed shows that attainment improves as a result of embedding ICT into teaching and learning. However, it was a common observation that there is a difficulty to quantify the extent of the improvement or the causal chain that links e-learning to improved outcomes. Inferring a causal relationship between ICT and pupil achievements from simple correlations can be misleading. It has to be considered that many unobserved factors may influence better learning results in national tests. According to the study ‘Innovative Learning Environments for School’32 ‘many variables and not ICT alone influence a learning situation or a learning environment’. Factors such as local school strategies, the school management’s style, and parents’ attitude combined with the strategic use of ICT may lead to a paradigm shift in learning. It can be assumed, that schools with more motivated teachers and head teachers are more likely to adopt ICT and to produce better attainments.33 If these factors are not taken into consideration, the findings might be deceptive. Isolating the impact of just one factor, such as ICT, therefore requires a well-considered approach. Furthermore, although assessing changes in learning outcomes and processes are important approaches to evaluating educational impact, it is also important to recognize that characteristics of the students, the technology, and the interaction between students and technology may influence its effectiveness. Moreover, socio –economic context has been proven a decisive variable determining student outcomes. 34 Characteristics of the learner include motivation, ability, and prior knowledge of (or experience in) the domain. In particular, the background knowledge of the learner has been repeatedly in the studies identified as a critical predictor in learning performance. Differences in students' prior knowledge or experiences have been found to change the usefulness of different resources and to result in different learning outcomes. Finding ways to assess and to account for student experience or knowledge is crucial to developing valid assessment of educational technology. Measuring ICT impact against students’ attainment and improvement of their basic skills is one way of impact assessment, but one which assumes a fixed education system in which school learning is primarily about mastering of a predetermined body of knowledge, skills and understanding. Wider areas of ICT impact like student attitudes and motivation and collaboration are also important and these will now be examined.
6.2. Impact on learners Motivation and skills A high proportion of studies of the impact of ICT do not focus on student attainment as measured by attainment tests, but rather on what might be called secondary or indirect variables such as motivation, concentration, cognitive processing, reading comprehension and critical thinking. Indeed, the
32 The study is based on six best practice case studies in Denmark, Great Britain (Scotland), Netherlands, Spain (Catalonia) and Sweden 33 Policy and Innovation in Education: ‘Leadership’, European Schoolnet. 2005. http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/thematic_dossiers/leadership.htm 34 See for example PISA (2003)
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