Media In the Classroom and Math Scores

Johnson, L. (2012). Does Media in the Classroom Increase Elementary School Students’ Math Achievement?.
https://www.rcampus.com/users/Lynette72/upload/file/Research_Proposal_Final_LynetteJohnson%20copy.pdf


In this article, the author discusses a study that would be done to look at the effectiveness of multimedia in the classroom compared to no multimedia in the classroom based on math scores. The study compared two different schools and three different groups within each school. The experimental group used many different types of media within the classroom and the control group did not use any form of media in the classroom. The participants were students in grades 3-7 and they were preparing for the 2013 ISAT-Math test. In the article, the author mentions specific reports done by the White House that show how much money is spent on media for the classroom. They believe that with how much is being spent on media for the classroom, that math achievement scores should increase in those classrooms that to have the media based on those that do not. They also looked at other studies done on this same topic and found that "media does not have a major, long-term impact on mathematics achievement" (Johnson, 2012). The author's hypothesize stated that after this study, they would see a "minor significant difference (null hypothesis) in math achievement as measured on the 2013 ISAT tests between tests between the media rich school and the non-media rich school" (Johnson, 2012). 

The one thing I found interesting in this article, was that in one of the studies, a study done by Li and Ma (2010), they found that interventions with a shorter time period (less than 6 months) were more effective than those that were a longer period of time (over 6 months). They also found that the only major impact the media had on student achievement was that of those students who had an IEP, had access to the media in their math class, or when the teaching approach was constructivist. I found this study to be interesting because all of the studies that Johnson refers to in her study, seemed to find the same results. They found that using different types of media in the classroom, does not produce better results in achievement scores. So it makes me wonder why she was doing yet again another study on the same focus? What was it about her study that she felt that she was going to get different results to go against what these other studies found? Although this article doesn't provide Johnson's results, I would be very curious to find what her results were, especially that this was based on the ISAT test and was done in schools in Chicago.