2015 Survey Questionnaires Results: Students' Computer Access and Use (NCES 2018-148)

On September 17, 2018, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) will release 2015 Survey Questionnaires Results: Students’ Computer Access and Use.

NCES is releasing a special report that uses 2015 survey questionnaire data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to examine the prevalence of students’ computer access and use. The NAEP survey questionnaires are completed by students, teachers, and school administrators and collect contextual information about educational experiences and factors that are related to students’ learning in and outside of the classroom.

The current report takes an in-depth look at students’ access to computers at home and in school, and students’ use of computers for classroom learning at grades 4, 8, and 12. Associations between students’ computer access and use and student performance on the 2015 NAEP mathematics and reading assessments are examined at the national level, across states and jurisdictions, and across large urban districts. The report also describes variations in students’ computer access by socioeconomic background and school type, and compares students’ computer use in 2015 to prior assessment years.

Key findings from the report include:

• Computer access is divided along socioeconomic lines. Smaller percentages of lower income students reported having computer access at home in comparison to middle-to-higher income students.
• Lower- and higher-performing students differ in how often they use computers for practicing and building academic skills in the classroom.
• Computer use once or twice a week increased by as much as 5 percentage points in mathematics classes and 6 percentage points in reading classes between 2013 and 2015.