Document Information
Quaker Valley Digital School District
Early Effects and Plans for Future Evaluation
Funded by an award from the state of Pennsylvania, Quaker Valley School District launched a Digital School District initiative, a program to equip every student in the district from 3rd through 12th grade with a laptop computer, set up wireless networks in all district buildings, and provide wireless Internet connections in all of the students’ homes. The program commenced with the 2001-2002 school year. In the second year of implementation, the district requested the RAND Corporation to produce a summative evaluation of the initiative and a research design for a future, comprehensive evaluation.
RAND research included a review of existing literature on the subject of educational technology in the classroom, and review of existing project implementation, demographic, and achievement data in the district. In addition, RAND conducted analyses of qualitative data collected during a three-day site visit to the district, including interviews and focus groups with district administrators, teachers, staff, parents, and students.
Research indicated increased awareness and competence with technology, as well as increases in student motivation and engagement. Use of the laptop computers was widespread in subject areas readily applicable to computer use, such as English and social studies, but more limited in other areas, such as math. RAND also found the initiative suffered from limited integration of the technology into the curriculum, lack of sufficient technological support, frequent laptop breakdowns, reliability problems with home connections, and improper use by a small number of students.
As a conceptual framework for further evaluation of the initiative, RAND devised a Theory of Change based on the district’s initial proposal and anticipated outcomes of the program, and refined it to include findings from the literature and the first two years of implementation. This Theory of Change became the basis for developing a set of research questions and a table of potential data sources for measuring the effects of the initiative. The report concludes with suggestions for analyses that could be performed on the data, along with a discussion of various attributes of the Quaker Valley program that limit the potential strength of these analyses.
Support RAND Research — Buy This Product!
Paperback Cover Price: $20.00
Discounted Web Price: $18.00
Pages: 88
ISBN/EAN: 0-8330-3538-X
Free, downloadable PDF file(s) are available below.
RAND makes an electronic version of this document available for free as a public service. If you find this information valuable, please consider purchasing a paper copy of the full document to help support RAND research.
Use Adobe Acrobat Reader version 7.0 or higher for the best experience.
Contents
Chapter One:
Introduction
Chapter Two:
Conceptual Framework
Chapter Three:
Current Status of the Digital School District Initiative
Chapter Four:
Plans for Future Evaluation of the Digital School District
Initiative
Chapter Five:
Conclusions and Recommendations
The research described in this report was supported by the Quaker Valley School District. The research was conducted in RAND Education.
This product is part of the RAND Corporation technical report series. RAND technical reports may include research findings on a specific topic that is limited in scope or intended for a narrow audience; present discussions of the methodology employed in research; provide literature reviews, survey instruments, modeling exercises, guidelines for practitioners and research professionals, and supporting documentation; or deliver preliminary findings. All RAND reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure that they meet high standards for research quality and objectivity.
Permission is given to duplicate this electronic document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes. Unauthorized posting of RAND PDFs to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND PDFs are protected under copyright law. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit the RAND Permissions page.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.
* RAND research is conducted across divisions, centers, and projects; these organizational components are represented in the "Related RAND Divisions" section above.
Top
RAND® is a registered trademark. Copyright © 1994-2008 RAND Corporation. 