Developing and Evaluating Digital Teaching-Learning Resources in Pakistani Higher Education: Evidence from a Meta-Analytic Review
Abstract
With increasingly generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and advanced digital technology tools becoming widespread in the higher education sector in Pakistan, the degree to which the technological adoption can have a substantive impact on student academic success has been a question to be answered. The current paper summarizes the empirical findings on the subject using a systematic meta-analysis as the aim is to inform the creation of evidence-based tools in digital teaching and learning. Systematic review was performed on quantitative studies that were published between 2002 and 2022 according to the PRISMA guidelines. Six qualified studies, which were carried out in Pakistani universities and a sample of 2568 individuals, were examined through a random-effects model to reveal the estimate of the standardized mean differences (Hedges g).
The overall effect size was g = 0.326 (p = 0.072) indicating a small positive correlation between the use of technology and academic success, but which does not achieve the traditional levels of statistical significance. The heterogeneity between studies was substantial (τ² = 0.14; I² = 99.03%), which means that there is large variation in the effectiveness of technology integration. Moderator analysis demonstrated that there was statistically significant effect of educational level (p < .001), with digital technologies providing stronger academic advantage to postgraduate (MPhil/PhD) groups compared to the undergraduate participants.
These findings challenge the belief that simple digital access multiplication is bound to be converted into improved learning performance, thus pointing out a long-standing gap between digital literacy and academic performance. To fill this gap, the study supports the paradigm shift to the interventions that are infrastructure based to pedagogy-based resource building. Particularly, it suggests designing strictly structured, scaffolded digital tools specifically suited to the needs of undergraduate students and the more open, less architectural research tools addressing the needs of postgraduate researchers, to make sure that future investments in educational technology are more about instructional design than about incidental digitalization.
Keywords: Academic Achievement, Digital Resources, Instructional Design, Meta-Analysis, Technology Integration.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18520358
