The use of tablets and laptops in education has become increasingly pervasive and controversial; advocates highlight gains in access and engagement while critics raise concerns around distraction, screen time, and the purposes of digital education. Yet evidence on pupil attainment remains limited, particularly in longitudinal evaluations using national data, while systems to capture data on how devices are used in practice are underdeveloped. This study presents findings from a doctoral evaluation of Oasis Horizons, a 2020 digital initiative providing pupils and teachers with iPads within Oasis Community Learning (OCL), a 52-academy trust serving areas of socioeconomic disadvantage. The analysis draws on the National Pupil Database to construct a panel of KS2 pupils (n=3,243,461; OCL: 8,807), spanning 2017/18–2024/25, including 29 OCL academies and 13,081 comparator schools. Outcomes include attainment in core KS2 subjects. Models control for pupil characteristics and school composition, including ethnicity, EAL, SEND, and FSM. Programme effects were estimated using difference-in-differences, exploiting OCL–non-OCL variation, with school and year fixed effects and standard errors clustered at school level. Triple-difference models examined subgroup variation. Given COVID-19 disruption, alternative onset definitions and event study specifications assessed timing sensitivity. Attainment effects were robust across specifications, with subgroup differences. Improvements were not immediate, emerging after sustained curriculum integration, suggesting that, beyond access, timing and curriculum embedding may be important. Findings provide cautious evidence on when large-scale EdTech initiatives may translate into attainment gains, and highlight a gap: without high-quality device-usage data, it remains difficult to identify where impacts occur.

Authors:
Jessica Talalay, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
Cathy Lewin, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
William Cook, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Jessica Talalay is a PhD researcher and ONS Accredited Researcher, having worked as a charity impact measurement manager and a school/community-based Autism Behaviour Specialist. Interests include EdTech, inequality, SEND, and mixed-methods research.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-talalay-1a6ba9102

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