Evidence Is Not Enough
Over the past two decades, education has embraced an idea that now seems almost unquestionable: decisions about policies, programs, or technologies should be grounded in evidence. Controlled trials, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews have helped identify which tools improve learning, under what conditions they do so, and to what extent. In place of the logic of constant innovation, a far more demanding question has emerged: what actually works?
Yet this evidence-based culture coexists with a paradox. Some educational technologies supported by rigorous research fail to reproduce those same results once they reach schools. Platforms that improve reading comprehension in experimental studies, applications that enhance mathematics learning, or digital systems designed to support teaching often end up being used only sparingly, abandoned after a few months, or generating far less impact than expected. The problem does not always lie in the quality of the tool itself. It arises when that tool leaves the controlled environment of research and enters the complexity of a real education system.
This is the starting point of the article Evaluating EdTech Viability: A Consolidated Benchmark for EdTech Implementations, recently published in Smart Learning Environments. Its authors argue that the outcomes of a technology intervention depend not only on the design of the solution or the strength of the evidence supporting it. They are also shaped by the extent to which the implementation context provides the conditions necessary for success. And yet, these conditions have rarely occupied a central place in educational technology evaluation frameworks.
The examples discussed in the study are well known. The One Laptop per Child initiative, designed to democratize access to technology through the mass distribution of laptops, failed to achieve many of its intended outcomes because device deployment was not accompanied by sufficient pedagogical integration, sustained teacher professional development, or long-term commitment from education authorities. National programs in South Africa, Turkey, and the United States encountered similar obstacles: inadequate infrastructure, limited teacher preparedness, interoperability problems, and difficulties in sustaining technical support at scale.
These cases point to a simple but important conclusion: a technology’s demonstrated effectiveness and its success in practice are not necessarily the same thing. Between the two lies a space that has long remained relatively overlooked. It is precisely this space that the authors propose placing at the center of the debate. They call it viability.
What Makes a Technology Viable?
The concept of viability is not entirely new. For years it has been used in fields such as economics, business management, and public policy to describe a project’s ability to endure and achieve its objectives. The novelty of this study lies in applying the concept to educational technology and treating it as an evaluation criterion as important as efficacy or effectiveness.
The authors define viability as the ability of a technological solution to function successfully within a specific educational context. This definition represents a significant shift in perspective. Instead of asking only what a tool can do, it invites us to examine whether the surrounding environment provides the conditions needed to realize its potential. The focus moves away from the product itself and toward the relationship between the technology and the education system seeking to adopt it.
From this perspective, a tool is not viable because of its intrinsic characteristics. The same platform may be perfectly suited to one education system while proving unworkable in another. Even within the same country, two schools with different resources, support structures, or levels of autonomy may achieve very different outcomes using exactly the same technology.
Viability therefore depends on the existence of the conditions required for a technology to be adopted, used, maintained, and, if successful, scaled without losing its effectiveness. These conditions encompass a wide range of factors: connectivity, device availability, teacher training, technical support, financial sustainability, and institutional backing. According to the study, all of these should be understood as part of the same challenge and assessed together rather than as isolated variables.
This perspective also challenges a widely held assumption within the EdTech sector: that demonstrating a tool’s positive impact on learning outcomes is enough to justify its adoption. The authors argue that evidence of impact is necessary—but not sufficient.
This way of understanding educational technology has important implications for those designing public policies, selecting digital platforms, or planning digital transformation strategies. The decision is no longer simply about identifying the tool with the strongest evidence of effectiveness, but about assessing the extent to which those results can actually be reproduced in a particular context. Viability ceases to be a secondary consideration and becomes a prerequisite for impact. Before asking how much a technology might improve learning, it is worth asking whether the education system is in a position to make it work.
La viabilidad depende, por tanto, de que existan las condiciones necesarias para que una tecnología pueda adoptarse, utilizarse, mantenerse y, si demuestra ser útil, escalarse sin perder eficacia.
The Four Dimensions of Viability
Although viability may initially appear to be an abstract concept, one of the study’s greatest contributions is that it makes it operational. After reviewing eleven of the leading international frameworks for evaluating educational technology, the authors identified 32 implementation-related factors and reorganized them into a much simpler model built around four dimensions: technical, human, economic, and systemic viability. Together, these dimensions provide a far more comprehensive understanding of the conditions that determine whether a technological solution can become a sustainable educational intervention.
Technical Viability
The first dimension is technical viability. It includes the most visible aspects of any digital transformation process: infrastructure, connectivity, devices, platform interoperability, cybersecurity, and technical support. However, the study extends this dimension well beyond simple access to technology. It also considers the system’s capacity to update software when curricula change, adapt to different languages and cultural contexts, maintain stable performance as the number of users grows, and ensure that the technology remains useful years after its implementation. In other words, it is not enough for an application to work on the day it is launched; it must be capable of evolving alongside the education system.
Human Viability
The second dimension is human viability, perhaps the clearest reminder that digital transformation never depends on technology alone. The authors include factors such as ease of use, initial training, the speed with which teachers and students develop the skills needed to use the tool, adoption rates, user engagement, and the involvement of different educational stakeholders in its continuous improvement. The question is not simply whether teachers know how to use a platform, but whether they have the time, guidance, and support required to integrate it meaningfully into their daily practice. Technology may be available, but if people do not incorporate it into their routines, it is unlikely to generate meaningful educational change.
Economic Viability
The third dimension is economic viability, an aspect that is often reduced to the purchase price of a license or a device. The report proposes a much broader perspective based on the concept of total cost of ownership. Beyond the initial investment, it recommends taking into account the cost of equipment, installation, connectivity, maintenance, updates, licensing, technical support, and hardware replacement over time. A technology that appears affordable at first glance may cease to be so once all these associated costs are considered. Assessing economic viability therefore means asking not only how much a technology costs to acquire, but whether the education system will be able to sustain it over the long term without compromising other priorities.
Systemic Viability
Finally, the study introduces systemic viability, a dimension that helps explain why some initiatives become firmly established while others quickly fade away. It includes elements such as the existence of a clear strategy, coordination mechanisms, decision-making processes, monitoring systems, data policies, and implementation support structures. In short, it concerns the system’s capacity to organize the introduction of technology, coordinate the different actors involved, and learn throughout the implementation process. Rather than viewing technology deployment as a series of isolated decisions, this dimension frames it as a policy that requires direction, continuity, and robust evaluation mechanisms.
The study concludes that viability does not depend on a single factor but on the balance among these four dimensions. A weakness in just one of them can seriously compromise the expected impact of a technology.
From Potential Impact to Realizable Impact
The study’s main contribution is not simply defining what makes a technology viable, but incorporating that concept into the way educational technology impact is assessed. Until now, most evaluation frameworks have focused on measuring a tool’s efficacy, effectiveness, equity, or ethical dimensions. The authors propose adding a complementary dimension: the likelihood that those results can actually be reproduced in a specific context.
To do so, they put forward a simple idea. The impact of a technology should not be understood as a fixed value, but as the result of combining two elements. On the one hand, the available evidence of its effects on learning. On the other, the conditions that enable it to be implemented effectively. Conceptually, realizable impact is the product of demonstrated impact and the viability of the context in which the technology is to be deployed.
This approach has significant implications for decision-making. A tool with outstanding research evidence may not be the best option for a particular education system if it requires technical, economic, or human conditions that are difficult to guarantee. Conversely, a solution supported by more modest evidence may ultimately generate greater impact because it fits existing capacities more closely and can be sustained over time. The question is no longer simply which technology has produced the best results, but which technology has the greatest chance of producing those results here and now.
This way of understanding educational innovation also shifts attention from the product to the implementation process. For years, much of the EdTech conversation has focused on identifying the most promising tools. This study encourages us to broaden that perspective and recognize that a technology’s success depends as much on the characteristics of the surrounding environment as on the technology itself.
At a time when artificial intelligence, digital learning platforms, and new educational technologies are being rapidly incorporated into education systems, this reflection is particularly timely. Innovation will continue to produce new tools, but the difference between those that genuinely transform education and those that disappear after only a few years is likely to lie not only in what they can do, but also in the conditions that allow them to work. In that sense, viability is no longer a technical or administrative concern—it becomes one of the central questions of educational digital transformation.
