Abstract :
A major challenge for researchers and educators has been to discern the effect
of ICT use on student learning outcomes. This paper maps the achievements in
Year 10 Science of two cohorts of students over two years where students in
the first year studied in a traditional environment while students in the second
took part in a blended or e-learning environment. Using both quantitative and
qualitative methods, the authors have shown that ICT, through an e-learning
intervention, did improve student performance in terms of test scores. They
have also shown that this improvement was not global with the results for
previously high-performing female students tending to fall while the results for
lower-achieving boys rose. There was also a seeming mismatch between some
students’ affective responses to the new environment and their test scores. This
study shows the complexity of ICT-mediated environments through its identification
and description of three core issues which beset the credibility of
research in ICT in education. These are (1) ICT as an agent of learning, (b) site
specificity, and (c) global improvement
