development, infrastructure maintenance, etc.); and curricular content that is relevant to needs and interests of teachers and students.
•
Finally, an important lesson learned is that it is equally important to know about the “failures” of ICT use in education. Important data can be gleaned from these stories to inform planning and roll out of ICT interventions in other countries within developing regions in the future.
VIII.
Suggestions for Future Evaluations
The design of future evaluations should capitalize on the lessons we have learned from evaluations of ICTs over the past few decades. Several suggestions are summarized below:
•
Assess impacts longitudinally: Generally the uptake of ICTs in schools is a long process. It can take years for teachers to fully appropriate the technology and even longer to be able to effectively integrate ICT into their teaching routines. Therefore studies should look at the impact on students over a period of years.
•
Be comprehensive in scope: Trucano (2005) found that the quantitative monitoring or impact data that has been collected in these evaluations focuses primarily on infrastructure (i.e. “the presence and functionality of ICT-related hardware and software”) as that is the most straightforward and easiest to collect (p. 13). Using quantitative techniques and qualitative techniques can help inform researchers and practitioners on the array of possible effects and explanations for observed effects.
•
Employ mixed methodologies: In recent years, a mixed-methods approach has become a popular alternative to selecting a purely quantitative or purely qualitative design (Day, Sammons & Gu, 2008). There is a reciprocal synergy between quantitative and qualitative approaches—for example, one may find compelling descriptions in qualitative interviews with stakeholders that can be further explored on a larger scale with survey or assessment data. On the other hand, one may want to delve into interesting patterns or trends found in survey or assessment data with in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders
•
Explore innovative research questions: Future research should extend beyond the descriptive to inform development of effective and relevant interventions that truly capitalize upon the strengths of ICTs in educational settings for learners.
IX.
Conclusion
The role of and potential for ICTs in the education sector is not an issue separate from educational reform efforts, but rather inextricably intertwined. ICTs are important tools to meet Millennium Development Goals of access to and quality improvements of educational programming for all children. This paper has reviewed relevant literature that investigates the impacts of ICT interventions on student learning outcomes and has highlighted the challenges that hinder rigorous evaluation of such interventions. Evaluation is a crucial process to assess how and when to use ICTs to achieve desired outcomes and to what degree perception and reality align. However, the number of reliable and methodologically rigorous studies that have been conducted on the impacts of ICTs in educational settings within developing countries is small. From this small pool, our review suggests that the impacts of ICTs on learner outcomes vary, whether positive, negative, or no impact at all. The perception of ICT impacts however among stakeholders is mostly positive and whether ICTs can meet these expectations is dependent upon how such solutions are implemented.