New Technology and Teacher Productivity

• In Event: 63.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

I study the effects of a labor-replacing computer technology on the productivity of classroom teachers. I analyze data from a series of randomized field experiments in which teachers were provided computer-aided instruction (CAI) software for use in their classrooms. CAI is designed to deliver personalized, adaptive instruction and practice to students one-on-one, with each student working independently at her own computer. Several prior studies have estimated the effect of CAI on average student outcomes, most frequently finding null results, but no prior research has estimated the effect of CAI on teacher productivity—as measured by the teacher’s contribution to student achievement growth.
I find that, among math teachers, the introduction of computer-aided instruction software reduces by approximately one-fifth the variation in teacher productivity. Using quantile regression methods, I show that the reduction in variance is the result of improvements for otherwise low-producing teachers, but also losses in productivity among otherwise high-producing teachers. The changes in productivity partly reflect changes in teachers’ level of work effort and teachers’ decisions about how to allocate class time.
Whether and how computers affect teacher performance is immediately relevant to both ongoing education policy debates about teaching quality and the day-to-day management of the teachers in schools. The analysis in this paper suggests new computer technology is an important, but under attended, contributor to differences in teacher productivity. It also highlights interactions between teachers’ skills and teachers’ decisions in determining observed
performance. New instructional technologies—like the computer-aided instruction example I examine—may greatly benefit students in some classrooms, especially the classrooms of low performing teachers, while simultaneously making students in other classrooms worse off.

Author

• Eric Taylor, Stanford University