Impact of smart classrooms combined with student-centered pedagogies on rural students’ learning outcomes: Pedagogy and duration as moderator variables

Rural students' lack of access to high-quality educational resources leads to lagging academic achievement and a deficiency in 21st-century skills. Smart classrooms integrate advanced technology to provide equitable digital learning and interactive environments for these students. However, determining optimal pedagogical approaches for smart classrooms and investigating the potential technology novelty effect remain areas of exploration. This study delved into the impact of smart classrooms combined with various student-centered pedagogies (SC-SCP)—team-based learning (TBL), problem-based learning (PBL), and project-based learning (PjBL), on rural students' learning outcomes. These outcomes encompassed academic achievement, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Additionally, the research examined how student-centered pedagogies and intervention duration moderated the effects of SC-SCP. A meta-analysis across 24 rural schools in Taiwan was conducted, each with a comparison class and an experimental class, resulting in a total of 48 classes. While the comparison classes within traditional classrooms combined with teacher-centered pedagogies (TC-TCP), the experimental classes embraced SC-SCP in smart classrooms. The findings indicate that: 1) The experimental classes outperformed the comparison classes in enhancing students’ learning outcomes; 2) when considering the moderating impact of student-centered pedagogies, PjBL exhibited the most substantial improvement in problem-solving skills, followed by PBL, and finally TBL; additionally, 3) SC-SCP demonstrated a minor improvement effect size in problem-solving skills after four weeks of intervention, which escalated to a significant effect size after eight weeks of intervention. In summary, these results suggest that a combination of smart classrooms and PjBL, implemented for a duration of over two months, leads to the most substantial enhancement in learning outcomes for rural students.