More Screens, Smaller Gains? Mathematics Learning Needs More Than Technology

A laptop, tablet or digital learning platform can make a mathematics lesson look modern, but tells very little about whether students are thinking more deeply, receiving useful feedback or making genuine academic progress. The study 'When More Technology Does Not Mean Better Learning: Digital Tool Use, Instructional Quality, and Mathematics Achievement in Everyday Classroom Settings,' published in the journal Frontiers in Education, examines this gap between the promise of educational technology and what happens during ordinary school lessons.

Researchers Christian Lindermayer, Timo Kosiol, Julia S. Meuleners, Tamara Kastorff, Birgit J. Neuhaus and Stefan Ufer found that frequent digital tool use was linked to weaker mathematics progress, while well-designed teaching remained positively connected with achievement.

A full school year inside everyday mathematics classrooms

The researchers followed 1,627 eighth-grade students from 72 classes across 30 secondary schools in Bavaria, Germany, covering high-, medium- and low-attaining school tracks. Data were collected near the beginning of the 2021–2022 academic year and again close to its end, allowing the team to compare students' later mathematics performance while accounting for the knowledge they already possessed.

Students completed curriculum-based tests covering areas such as proportional reasoning, percentages, linear functions, probability and spatial geometry. They also reported how often digital tools had appeared during their five most recent mathematics lessons, including lesson openings, explanations, individual work, group activities and closing phases. The tools covered several purposes, from watching videos and constructing geometric figures to collaborating on shared documents, taking online tests and participating in live digital polls.

Instructional quality was measured through three familiar parts of classroom life. Classroom management captured attention, productive learning time and the handling of disruptions; cognitive activation reflected whether lessons encouraged reasoning, explanation and deeper thinking; student support covered helpful feedback, clear guidance and teachers' awareness of individual difficulties. Two-level statistical models separated patterns found among students within the same classroom from differences observed between entire classes.

More technology was associated with slightly weaker progress

Students who reported more frequent everyday digital tool use tended to make slightly less progress in mathematics after their earlier achievement had been taken into account. Technology frequency added very little explanatory power, meaning the finding should not be exaggerated; it still challenges the belief that increasing screen time or expanding the number of digital activities will automatically improve learning.

The timing of tool use also mattered in preliminary analyses: Reported digital use near the beginning of the school year was not connected with later achievement, while more frequent use near the end of the year showed a negative association. The study cannot establish that technology caused lower scores, since students and teachers were observed in natural classrooms rather than randomly assigned to different forms of instruction, but the longitudinal design provides stronger evidence than a one-time comparison.

This result differs from many experimental studies and meta-analyses reporting positive effects from educational technology. Carefully controlled projects often provide teachers with selected software, structured lesson plans, technical assistance and detailed training, creating conditions that ordinary schools may struggle to reproduce. Everyday teachers may have to choose tools alone, adapt them to different topics, manage technical failures and keep students focused at the same time. Simulations and intelligent tutoring systems can support understanding when thoughtfully used, while repetitive drill programs, poorly aligned activities or distracting devices may consume lesson time without strengthening mathematical thinking.

Good teaching mattered more than the number of digital tools

Frequent technology use was not positively associated with stronger instructional quality at the classroom level. Correlations were mostly weak or negative, and classroom management at the second measurement point showed a significant negative relationship with digital use. A classroom using technology regularly was therefore not necessarily better organized, more intellectually challenging or more supportive.

Instructional quality retained its value when digital use was included in the models. Cognitive activation and student support were associated with stronger mathematics achievement at the class level, showing that students benefited when lessons encouraged reasoning and when teachers provided responsive help. Classroom management had a positive but statistically non-significant direct relationship with class-level achievement, while all three quality dimensions were positively associated with performance at the student level.

The researchers also tested whether strong teaching could change the relationship between technology frequency and achievement. No moderating effect appeared at the classroom level for management, cognitive activation or student support. Classes rated as offering higher-quality instruction did not gain more from frequent digital use, suggesting that technology was not being used to strengthen those valuable teaching features.

When classroom management was perceived as weak or average, frequent digital use was associated with lower predicted achievement; under very strong management, the relationship became more favourable. Digital devices can introduce distractions that teachers may find difficult to notice, and students differ in their ability to remain focused, interpret instructions and use online resources productively. A structured environment may protect some learners from these risks even when the classroom-wide effect remains uncertain.

Schools need better digital teaching, not simply more screen time

The study does not argue that digital tools are harmful or that schools should abandon them. Its central message is that frequency is a poor measure of educational value. A spreadsheet that removes repetitive calculation can leave students more time to investigate mathematical patterns, while the same tool may simply replace handwritten routine work without encouraging deeper thought. Dynamic geometry software can help learners explore shapes across multiple representations, yet it offers little benefit when tasks are narrow, feedback is weak, or students do not understand the purpose of the activity.

The findings support teacher training that brings technology and instructional quality together, with greater attention to tool selection, learning goals, classroom routines, feedback and subject-specific teaching strategies. Schools also need to judge whether digital activities promote reasoning, collaboration and meaningful exploration rather than counting devices or tracking how often software is opened.

Digital use and instructional quality were measured through student reports covering only five recent lessons; the study did not directly observe how well each tool was implemented, and some measurement scales had limited reliability. Teacher knowledge, motivation and beliefs were not included; the digital-use measure was broad rather than strongly mathematics-specific, and the non-experimental design cannot prove causation. Larger studies using classroom observations, video analysis, teacher reports, and detailed records of particular technologies could reveal which combinations of tools, teaching practices and lesson types genuinely support learning.