http://www.barbarafeldman.com/web-surfing-helps-school-grades/ If my life had a tagline, it would go here. Wed, 23 May 2012 09:25:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://www.barbarafeldman.com/web-surfing-helps-school-grades/comment-page-1/#comment-2065 Dave Taylor Sun, 10 Aug 2003 20:34:52 +0000 http://www.barbarafeldman.com/blog/web-surfing-helps-school-grades/#comment-2065 I'm cringing, Barbara. You're mistaking correlational data for causal. What the research shows is that there's a correllation between kids who surf the web and higher scores, it doesn't at all mean that surfing the web leads to higher scores! For example, I posit that kids who surf the web are more likely to come from higher income homes (they have computers at home and Internet connectivity, or they visit libraries with Internet access or their schools have funding to offer Internet access) and homes where their parents have achieved a higher level of education (educated people are more likely to have Internet access than uneducated, for a variety of reasons including income level and level of curiosity about the world). But then again, it could be something as direct as kids who surf the net visit test prep sites and learn how to take standardized tests, therefore boosting their scores. :-) I’m cringing, Barbara. You’re mistaking correlational data for causal. What the research shows is that there’s a correllation between kids who surf the web and higher scores, it doesn’t at all mean that surfing the web leads to higher scores!
For example, I posit that kids who surf the web are more likely to come from higher income homes (they have computers at home and Internet connectivity, or they visit libraries with Internet access or their schools have funding to offer Internet access) and homes where their parents have achieved a higher level of education (educated people are more likely to have Internet access than uneducated, for a variety of reasons including income level and level of curiosity about the world).
But then again, it could be something as direct as kids who surf the net visit test prep sites and learn how to take standardized tests, therefore boosting their scores.

]]>