Relationship of Technology with the Academic Performance of Students

Introduction

In the recent years, there are great investigations that examine the different impacts of educational technology on student achievement. Therefore, there is an increasing support of the government in the technology on education and spending billions of dollars in the implementation.

Traditionally, teachers are the main users of the technology such as computers and Internet for a variety of purpose in aiming for the student achievement. Meanwhile, the students’ use the technology at home is deliberately criticized as the provider of failing grades of the students and other negative learning outcomes (O’Dwyer, et al., 2005). Many argued that the negative outcomes are based on the self-control of the students, especially in the social networking sites, that many educators has a split opinion unto whether or not it affects the students’ academic performance.

Precedent Problems Affecting the Student Academic Performance

Students are plagued with different issues and challenges in achieving the success in academic. But the problem is not about the performance standards (Edyburn, 2006). The problems identified includes the inadequate background on the lecture of the teachers, long working hours inside the classroom, lack of time to study and seeking advice, lack of management skills, bad study habits and skills, and lack of self-confidence. Teachers identified that these are the common problems in the students that affects their education. Other than that, the students today are more engaged in family, responsibilities, social and extracurricular activities, and even in family financial problems (Addus, Chen, & Khan, 2007).

In fact, the school activities also contributes in the problem because the activities do not only take away from the time meant for sleeping, attending classes, and studying which can be result in stress and have a negative effects on their academic performance. This problem disturbs the students’ focus and may contribute to absenteeism and sleeping inside the classroom. Accordingly, other than the continuous research and provided service of the teachers, improvement on teaching, effectiveness of the teaching approaches, techniques and availability of the teachers for student assistance; there should be also initiatives from the students. The student’s commitment to attain a good education should reflect on their study habits and cooperation, and motivation and efforts to seek assistance might result to the academic performance (Addus, Chen, & Khan, 2007).

Technology and its Interventions

Other than computers, there are other technology interventions that help the teachers and other educators promote the learning. There are technologies available that guides the students in their learning. For example, a student finds difficulty in speech and the teacher wants to attend his needs. The teacher may provide or suggest to the students to sharpen his skills at home through a recorded CD and the student can accompany the listening by reading the same text. This collaboration of technology in learning can build a good start in academic performance. On the other hand, teachers can use the technological access of the students to incorporate their work in computer software (Edyburn, 2006). With that, the student’s report or presentation of work may not sound boring to the other students, draw the interests of participation, and can create another portal for learning.

Outcomes

In measuring the relationship of the technology in the academic settings, there is evidence that the teachers’ and students’ relationship is also increasing. Furthermore, the increasing participation of the students inside the classroom, changes in teacher and student attitudes, focus on teacher training and student’s prior achievement and socioeconomic status are the other impacts of technology across the curriculum. From these indicators, researchers and education leaders suggests that the use of technology in academic settings should be highly implemented and heavily integrated which results to the attainment of development in writing, reading, and even in math scores (Adeyemo and Kuye, 2006; O’Dwyer, et al., 2005). In addition, the combination of technology in academic settings is more cost-effective that the other pedagogical interventions including the issues on classroom size that is most visible in the low income and rural areas. Together, the teachers and students continuously learn in their exploration of the facts in different search engine sites.

Conclusion

There is a great potential of collaboration of technology in curriculum. The technology can contribute to the additional of knowledge and can promote the brainstorming process, as well as the strong foundation of social communication (Adeyemo and Kuye, 2006). With the technology interventions, it is expected that there is an improvement in the academic performance of the students as reflected on their academic examinations.

References:

Addus, A., Chen, D., & Khan, A., 2007. Academic Performance and Advisement of University Students: A Case Study. College Student Journal, Vol. 41, No. 2.

Adeyemo, A., & Kuye, G., 2006. Mining Students’ Academic Performance Using Decision Tree Algorithms. Journal of Information Technology Impact, Vol. 6, No. 3. [Online] Available at: http://www.jiti.com/v06/jiti.v6n3.161-170.pdf. [Accessed 14 Jan 2010].

Edyburn, D., 2006. Evaluate Academic Performance With and Without Technology. MACUL Journal. [Online] Available at: https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/edyburn/www/js06evaluatea.pdf. [Accessed 14 Jan 2010].

O’Dwyer, L., Russell, M., Bebell, D., & Seeley, K., 2005. Examining the Relationship Between Home and School Computer Use and Students’ English/Language Arts Test Scores. The Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, Vol. 3, No. 3. [Online] Available at: http://escholarship.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=jtla. [Accessed 14 Jan 2010].