This Statistics in Brief investigates some factors that may contribute to achievement gaps in the summer after kindergarten, including differences in children's experiences, such as participation in summer care arrangements, programs, and activities. Specifically, the brief describes students' summer nonparental care arrangements, program…

The goal of this study was to determine if laptop use in lecture negatively impacts learning outcomes of surrounding students taking notes on paper. Two sections of a large introductory biology course (greater than 400 students/section) were zoned into a laptop-permitted and a laptop-free area. Two sections in which laptop users could sit anywhere…

Tablet PCs have been increasingly used in undergraduate courses to create recorded lectures that are close copies of the live lectures. Research has shown that students are largely positive about the availability of tablet PC recorded lectures. However, there is some concern that the availability of such faithful recordings may encourage students…

Students and faculty were surveyed about their perceptions of faculty members providing a replica of instructor lecture notes to students, and the subsequent impact that practice might have on student attendance and student learning. Each group was also surveyed about particular preferences in information delivery in the classroom. Results…

The advent of internet-based delivery of basic medical science lectures may unintentionally lead to decreased classroom attendance and participation, thereby creating a distance learning paradigm. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that classroom attendance/participation may be positively correlated with performance on a written examination…

Findings of a study that examined the effect of a computer-assisted absence registration system (ARS) on student truancy are presented in this paper. A pre- and post-test group design compared the truancy levels of 30 secondary schools in 4 large cities in western Holland who participated in the ARS program with those of 19 nonparticipating…

Results of a study involving 300 high school and middle school students indicated that students whose homes were called with a computer dialing device when the child was absent from school had a better overall attendance record than students whose homes were not called. (IAH)

Gender differences have attracted attention in today's educational research and practice. Very few studies, however, explore the gender differences in the use of technology in higher education. The authors conducted a study on technology adoption at a large Canadian university. One of its purposes was to inform our understanding of how gender…

The use of the Absence Registration System (ARS), a computer-assisted system that supports registration of absent students, and its effects on truancy were studied in 30 Dutch urban secondary schools. Reasons why results do not show a significant reduction in absenteeism are discussed. (SLD)