Loyd, B. H. (1991). Mathematics test performance: The effects of item type and calculator use . Applied Measurement in Education , 4 (1), 11–22. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324818ame0401_2

A math test was given with 4 subsets of items: I-Easier with a calculator, II-No great advantage with a calculator, III-Calculator not needed, IV-More difficult with use of calculator.

Participants included 160 high school students ages 13 to 17 (69 boys and 71 girls). The majority of students were White (83%) with Black (10%) and other (7%) ethnic backgrounds present. Most (60%) students were very comfortable using a calculator.

A 32-item math test was used as the dependent variable.

Three major findings were reported: Almost 50% of the students did not use a calculator.
Calculator use was predicted by item type:
For Type I problems, students with calculators performed better than those who did not use them. For Type II problems, the use of calculators did not result in significantly greater performance. For Type III problems, use of calculators was not helpful.
For Type IV problems, no difference appeared between students with or without calculators
More time was needed to use calculators.