Digital Learning: the Impact of Parental Support in Reduceing Gender Gap

Policy Challenges and Envisaged Changes in Digital Learning

In recent years, the use of online learning tools in education has increased significantly in most developed countries. This trend was further accelerated by the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent school closures in 2020. Given the increasing prevalence of these tools and their likely integration into mainstream education systems, it is essential to understand the role of parental support and the efforts put forth by children in digital learning.

Although there is an increasing body of literature on the use of digital resources in classrooms, less attention has been paid to online learning at home, where parental investment gains relevance. Economic studies have documented gender differences in parental involvement, not only in developing countries but also in developed ones. In the USA, boys receive more paternal time than girls (Lundberg et al., 2007; Price, 2008). In Canada, the UK, and the USA, parental time investment in educational activities, such as reading, tends to favor girls, while fathers invest significantly more time in boys (Baker and Milligan, 2016). Mammen (2011) finds that in the US, fathers allocate more time to their children if they have at least one boy, whereas mothers’ total time investment remains consistent regardless of the gender composition of their children.

If similar parental gender biases are present in the use of digital learning tools, this may lead to a future gender gap in educational achievements and labor market outcomes.

Project DEMOCRAT: Parental Support and Gender Bias in Digital Learning

The project DEMOCRAT has analyzed the potential existence of social biases in the use of digital tools to support learning in families. It explores gender biases associated with a STEM online learning platform supporting the classroom learning process. It is crucial to understand the parental support provided and the effort made by children. If there is a significant parental gender bias in the use of digital learning tools, it could translate into a gender gap in educational achievements and labor market outcomes in the near future.

Evidence, Analysis, and Results on Digital Learning

Erdemli & Vall (2024) quantify the effort and performance gaps between girls and boys when using an online learning platform and analyze whether the direction and the magnitude of the gap differ according to the gender of the parent who primarily supervises the child. Furthermore, the study analyzes whether the results are heterogeneous by the gender of the eldest sibling using the platform (to test for any role model effect) and the gender norms in the municipality of residence. The study uses individual-level anonymous data from Smartick, an online math learning platform used in over 100 countries and one of the most widely used in Spain. The study focuses on data from members living in Spain, as they represent the largest proportion of Smartick users.

As Smartick is mainly parent-based, either the father or the mother must register the child on the platform, and they track the child’s progress by checking the daily emails sent by Smartick regarding the child’s attendance, performance, and progress. This individual relationship established between one parent and Smartick automatically makes that parent responsible for the child’s digital learning process. The data analyzed includes members registered between January 2019 and January 2021. The outcomes analyzed are mainly two: children’s effort and their relative performance.

Key Findings:

• Effort and Performance Gaps: The results point to the existence of a gender gap in both effort and relative performance outcomes in favor of boys. However, effort gaps are smaller—or even positive in favor of girls—when the main supervisor is the mother. For performance outcomes, no differences in the gender gap were observed depending on the gender of the main supervisor.
• Role of Gender Norms: Living in a municipality with more egalitarian gender norms correlates with positive effort outcomes for girls. However, such differences for gender gaps in relative performance outcomes were not observed.
• Age and Completion Rates: The gender gap in delayed completion, representing the extra time needed to complete sessions, decreases by age, while other outcomes remain consistent across ages.
• Income Disparities: The study found no significant differences in gender gaps in outcomes based on the income levels of the municipality of residence.

Relevance for Education for Democracy

The study provides new evidence on gender gaps in learning outcomes and parental support in an online learning context. Furthermore, living in a municipality with more egalitarian gender norms is associated with a positive impact on the gender gap. Thus, fostering more egalitarian gender norms might help reduce the gender gap in digital learning.

The use of online tools by both parents and schools has increased recently, making it crucial to analyze the gender differences in using these tools at home. To the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence in the literature on how this division of childcare or educational support affects the effort and academic performance of boys and girls differently.

The findings on the relations between parental time investment and gendered learning outcomes are also relevant in light of the ICCS survey results indicating that:

a) Female students show better results in learning civic knowledge but are slightly less inclined toward future political and civic participation, except for voting.
b) The expectation of future civic and political engagement strongly correlates with political and social interest but less with civic knowledge.
c) Social and political interest is associated with the social and political interest of parents or legal guardians.

In conclusion, parental interest in political and social issues influences students’ political and social interests and, consequently, their expected political and civic education more than school does. Both the results of the study on parental support in digital learning at home and the ICCS study suggest a need to refocus attention from the formal education system to education at home. This also calls for refining the relationship between formal education in schools and education and learning at home.

Authors: Daniel Montolio & Karsten Kruger