The results of this meta-analysis are generally encouraging. The result from the present study indicate that the overall effects are nearly twice as large as other recent meta-analyses conducted in the area of instructional technology. This finding suggests that the overall effects of technology on student outcomes may be greater than previously thought.

The purpose of the present study is to synthesize recent research on the effects of teaching and learning with technology on student outcomes. This quantitative synthesis investigates these results by addressing the following questions:

• How extensive is the empirical evidence on the relationship between teaching and learning with technology and student outcomes?
• What is the magnitude and direction of the relationship between teaching and learning with technology and student outcomes?
• Are there certain social contexts or student characteristics that affect the relationship?
• Are there particular methodological characteristics that affect the relationship?
• Are there specific characteristics of the technology that affect its relationship with student outcomes?
• Are there specific characteristics of instructional features that affect technology’s relationship with student outcomes?

To estimate the effects of teaching and learning with technology on students’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes of learning, 282 effect sizes were calculated using statistical data from 42 studies that contained a combined sample of approximately 7,000 students. The mean of the study-weighted effect sizes averaging across all outcomes was .410 (p < .001), with a 95-percent confidence interval (CI) of .175 to .644. This result indicates that teaching and learning with technology has a small, positive, significant (p < .001) effect on student outcomes when compared to traditional instruction. The mean study-weighted effect size for the 29 studies containing cognitive outcomes was .448, and the mean study-weighted effect size for the 10 comparisons that focused on student affective outcomes was .464. On the other hand, the mean study-weighted effect size for the 3 studies that contained behavioral outcomes was -.091, indicating that technology had a small, negative effect on students’ behavioral outcomes. The overall study-weighted effects were constant across the categories of study characteristics, quality of study indicators, technology characteristics, and instructional/teaching characteristics.