The Effect of Using Technology in Education on Academic Achievement of Students: The Case of Geographical Information Systems

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of Geographic Information Systems, one of the educational technologies, on the academic performance of students. In accordance with this purpose, to combine the results of independent experimental studies, the meta-analysis method was put into use. Within this context, as a result of the literature review, in the meta-analysis, 17 experimental studies conducted between the years 2007 and 2020 were included. The total sample size of the mentioned studies was 620 in the experimental group and 607 in the control group. Thalheimer and Cook's (2002) classification was used in calculating the effect size values in the study in which the random effects model was used. Publication bias in research; Funnel Plot was tested with Rosenthal Fail Safe N value, cut and fill method of Duval and Tweedie and Begg-Mazumdar statistics, and studies included in meta-analysis were found to be heterogeneous. The effect of moderator variables, which are thought to influence academic achievement, was examined. Q and p significance tests were used to calculate the effect of moderator variables. According to the results of the study, it has been determined that GIS has a very wide (+1,193) effect on academic achievement. Positive average effect size indicates a change in favour of the experimental group. It was concluded that among the moderator variables, the study type, class level and sample size did not create a significant change in the effect size, and the year variable created a significant difference in the effect size.