THE ROLE OF EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE IN SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

The educational software is intended to support and enhance the students' learning performances. In addition to the software's characteristics, such as scope, purpose, etc., the characteristic of the end-user student play a role in the type and magnitude of the learning effects. Moreover, whereas the effects are estimated formally by the teachers, the end-user student may still experience positive effects such as increased facility of learning. The research questions concerned the teacher-student differences and the predictive value of the computer and software usage for the facility of learning and academic performance. The study design was transversal, one-time, correlational, using multiple regressions to determine the most relevant impacts of the predictor variables on the students' academic performance. The results provide the basis for further, experimental research, to explore the direction of influence, and a basis for the teachers to better manipulate the use of educational software for their students' learning performances enhancement.