This paper explores China’s digital divide, with a focus on differences in access to computers, learning software, and the Internet at school and at home among different groups of elementary school children in China. The digital divide is examined in four different dimensions: (i) between students in urban public schools and students in rural public schools; (ii) between students in rural public schools and students in private migrant schools; (iii) between migrant students in urban public schools and migrant students in private migrant schools; and (iv) between students in Han-dominated rural areas and students in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. Using data from a set of large-scale surveys in schools in different parts of the country, we find a wide gap between computer and Internet access of students in rural areas and those in urban public schools. The gap widens further when comparing urban students to students from minority areas. The divide is also large between urban and rural schools when examining the quality of computer instruction and access to learning software. Migration does not appear to eliminate the digital divide, unless migrant families are able to enroll their children in urban public schools. The digital divide in elementary schools may have implications for future employment, education and income inequality in China.

Recent attention has been placed on whether computer assisted learning (CAL) can effectively improve learning outcomes. However, the empirical evidence of its impact is mixed. Previous studies suggest that the lack of an impact in developed countries may be attributable to substitution of effort/time away from productive, in-school activities. However, there is little empirical evidence on how effective an in-school programme may be in developing countries. To explore the impact of an in-school CAL programme, we conducted a clustered randomised experiment involving over 4000 third and fifth grade students in 72 rural schools in China. Our results indicate that the in-school CAL programme has significantly improved the overall math scores by 0.16 standard deviations. Both the third graders and the fifth graders benefited from the programme.

Keywords: computer assisted learning; out-of-school programme; in-school programme; substitution effect; test scores

Can the BRIC university systems greatly increase the quantity of graduates in these developing countries and simultaneously achieve high enough quality to compete successfully at the higher end of the global knowledge economy?

This paper uses a clustered randomised field experiment to explore the effects of a computer assisted learning (CAL) programme on student academic and non-academic outcomes in poor, rural public schools in China. Our results show that a remedial, game-based CAL programme in math held outside of regular school hours with boarding students in poor rural public schools improved standardised math scores by 0.12 standard deviations. Students from poorer families tended to benefit more from the programme. However, CAL did not have any significant impact on either Chinese language standardised test scores or non-academic outcomes.

Experts agree that computers and computing play an important role in education. Since the 1980s there has been a debate about gender as it relates to computers and education. However, results regarding gender differences concerning computer use in education are not consistent. In particular there is little work done in China on this issue. Therefore, the overall goal of this paper is to demonstrate whether girls and boys can gain equally from computer-based education in China’s elementary schools. To do so we analyze results from three randomized field experiments of a Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) program and one laptop per child (OLPC) program. The field experiments are carried out in three kinds of schools: Shannxi rural public schools; Qinghai minority public schools; and Beijing migrant schools. Although CAL and OLPC have been considered cost effective means to improve learning outcomes, it is not known whether the programs impact girls differently than boys. Our analysis shows that, in fact, there were no differences between female and male students in either the improvement in standardized math test scores or Chinese test scores with either the CAL or OLPC programs. Our study suggests that among disadvantaged students in China’s rural areas and migrant communities, there is reason to believe that computer based learning can benefit both girls and boys equally. This finding has possible implications for China’s ongoing efforts to integrate computers and computing technologies into the nation’s underserved schools.

The education of disadvantaged populations has been a long-standing challenge to the education system in both developed and developing countries. Although computer-assisted learning (CAL) has been considered one alternative to improve learning outcomes in a cost-effective way, the empirical evidence of its impacts on improving learning outcomes is mixed. This paper uses a cluster randomized field experiment in 57 schools (26 schools were part of the CAL program; 31 control schools were not) to explore the effects of the CAL program on student academic and non-cognitive outcomes for students in public schools in minority rural areas in China. Our results show that a remedial, game-based CAL program that focused on teaching Chinese (held out of regular school hours) improved the standardized Chinese scores of the students in the treatment schools by 0.14-0.19 standard deviations more than those in the control schools. Moreover, CAL also had significant spillover effects on student standardized math test scores. Still further, our results also show insignificant positive effects of CAL intervention on student non-academic outcomes of interest in studying and metacognition, and significant positive effect on student self-efficacy of Chinese studying. In general, low-performing students benefited more from the program. The CAL intervention also had mixed effects on the non-academic outcomes of students from different ethnic minority groups. 

The education of the disadvantaged population has been a long-standing challenge to education systems in both developed and developing countries. Although computer-assisted learning (CAL) has been considered one alternative to improve learning outcomes in a cost-effective way, the empirical evidence of its impacts on improving learning outcomes is mixed. This paper uses a randomized field experiment to explore the effects of CAL on student academic and non-academic outcomes for students in migrant schools in Beijing. Our results show that a remedial CAL program held out of regular school hours improved the student standardized math scores by 0.15 standard deviations and most of the program effect took place within 2 months after the start of the program. Students with less-educated parents benefited more from the program. Moreover, CAL also significantly increased the students’ interest in learning