@article{Whitacre_Higgins_2021, title={Do hotspots improve student performance? Evidence from a small-scale randomized controlled trial}, volume={26}, url={https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/11467}, DOI={10.5210/fm.v26i7.11467}, abstractNote={<p>Much has been made about the “homework gap” that exists between students who have access to the Internet and those that do not. Policy-makers increasingly recognize the connectivity aspect of this issue but typically fail to acknowledge the importance of computer ownership. We use a small-scale randomized controlled trial (<em>n</em>=18) to test whether the provision of Internet access by itself — or in conjunction with a laptop computer — improves educational outcomes of alternative high-school students in the U.S. Our results suggest that the combination of Internet access and computer ownership is more effective than Internet access alone for positive educational outcomes.</p>}, number={7}, journal={First Monday}, author={Whitacre, Brian and Higgins, Amanda}, year={2021}, month={Jun.} }