Does computer-aided instruction improve children’s cognitive and noncognitive skills?

This paper examines the causal effects of computer-aided instruction (CAI) on children’s cognitive and noncognitive skills. We ran a clustered randomized controlled trial at five elementary schools with more than 1,600 students near Phnom Penh, Cambodia. After 3 months of intervention, we find that the average treatment effects on cognitive skills are positive and statistically significant, while hours of study were unchanged both at home and in the classroom. This indicates that CAI is successful in improving students’ learning productivity per hour. Furthermore, we find that CAI raises students’ subjective expectation to attend college in the future.