Analyses of the impact of terminals, i.e., computers and tablets, on education have focused on assessing student learning and academic performance based on the number of terminals delivered or on the ratio of students per terminal. In this sense, the impact of the terminal technical characteristics on educational outcomes has been neglected. Put differently, existing analyses have assumed that all terminals, regardless of their technical capabilities, have the same effect on academic performance.
This study aims to fill this gap by evaluating the impact of the type of terminal technology delivered by the CPE program on the academic performance of public educational institutions in Colombia during the years 2014 to 2018. The results of the econometric estimation led to the conclusion that improvements in the technical specifications of the tablets delivered by CPE intensify the positive effect on the educational performance of 0-11 grade institutions in Colombia.
