Socioeconomic differences in elementary students’ ICT beliefs and out-of-school experiences

The purpose of the study was to explore possible links between student socioeconomic status (SES), beliefs about information and communication technologies (ICTs), and out-of-school learning resources. Grades 5 and 6 students (N = 345) who were enrolled in one private and six public elementary schools in Greece, located in areas with different demographic characteristics, responded to a questionnaire addressing their ICT self-efficacy and value beliefs, out-of-school ICT access and activities, perceived parental support and regulation of home ICT activities, and access to sources of technological support beyond the family. Findings showed that students from all SES family backgrounds tended to have positive views about the value of ICTs, but students from low-SES families expressed lower confidence in their ICT skills. Parents from all SES backgrounds appeared to view equally favorably their children’s engagement with ICTs, and perceived parental support correlated highly with students’ ICT value beliefs. However, students from low-SES families appeared to have fewer opportunities to develop ICT competencies, which may explain why they expressed less positive self-efficacy beliefs. Findings stress the need for school ICT integration efforts to take into account student differences in prior experiences and to be coordinated with students’ home computer use.     

Networking relations of using ICT within a teacher community

The purpose of the present study was to examine the network structure of a teacher community in relation to their use of information and communication technology (ICT). The participants in the study were the 33 members of the teacher community of an upper comprehensive school from a suburban area of Helsinki, Finland. The methodology of the study was social network analysis. The participants were asked to assess their networking relations according to the following five dimensions: (1) providing technical advice regarding ICT, (2) providing pedagogical advice for using ICT, (3) collaboration regarding web-based learning, (4) acquiring new knowledge or ideas of web-based learning, and (5) informal interaction between the members of the community. The results indicated that there were a few central actors in the community who dominated technical and pedagogical knowledge exchange and to whom their colleagues actively turned when seeking advice. Two of the cognitively central actors represented hybrid expertise, a characteristic of which was to merge technological and pedagogical expertise in using ICT in education. These actors also tended to have their own external networking relations that helped them keep up their high level of competence. The participants’ ICT-related egocentric networks differed in size and density. There were some actors central in the network of informal interaction that were, simultaneously, peripheral in ICT-related networking activities. On the other hand, the central actors of ICT were not necessarily the socially central persons in the community. Four patterns of networking were identified in the analysis; The Counsellor offers advice actively without seeking information herself from colleagues; The Inquirer is an active seeker of ICT-related information capitalizing on her social relations; The Collaborator engages in collaborative efforts of web-based learning by using several media; and The Weakly Social prefers media rather than face-to-face contacts in his information seeking.     

Student teachers’ thinking processes and ICT integration: Predictors of prospective teaching behaviors with educational technology

Student teachers should be prepared to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into their future teaching and learning practices. Despite the increased availability and support for ICT integration, relatively few teachers intend to integrate ICT into their teaching activities (e.g., Ertmer, 2005). The available research has thus far mainly focused on isolated teacher related variables to explain the weak level of ICT integration. Also, most of this research was set up in Western settings. The present study centers on the impact of Chinese student teachers’ gender, constructivist teaching beliefs, teaching self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy, and computer attitudes on their prospective ICT use. For this purpose, a survey was set up involving student teachers from four Normal Universities in China (N = 727). Results show that prospective ICT integration significantly correlates with all teacher related variables, except for gender. Building on the results of a path analysis model, prospective ICT integration could be directly predicted on the base of teacher thinking variables (constructivist teaching beliefs, teacher self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy and computer attitudes in education), and indirectly by the gender of the student teachers. Implications for teacher education and further research are discussed.     

Investigating ICT using problem-based learning in face-to-face and online learning environments

This article reports on the design, implementation and evaluation of a module in the MEd (Business) in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong in which an explicit problem-based learning (PBL) approach was used to investigate the challenges associated with the adoption and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Hong Kong secondary school classrooms. PBL influenced both the way the curriculum was developed and the process by which students (n = 18) investigated topics related to the integration of ICT in business studies classrooms. The evaluation was based on five evaluative questions dealing with the implementation of PBL, the extent to which PBL facilitated academic discourse, the extent of ‘new’ knowledge about ICT that had been created, the role of the tutor, and the online learning environment provided. The evaluation revealed that PBL provided a practical approach to investigating ICT in both face-to-face and online learning environments, leading to ‘new’ knowledge about challenges associated with the adoption and use of new technologies in various educational settings.     

Improving literacy and metacognition with electronic portfolios: Teaching and learning with ePEARL

Can an electronic portfolio that is both a multimedia container for student work and a tool to support key learning processes have a positive impact on the literacy practices and self-regulated learning skills of students? This article presents the findings of a yearlong study conducted in three Canadian provinces during the 2007–2008 school year initially involving 32 teachers and 388 students. Due to varying levels of implementation our final data set included 14 teachers and 296 students. Using a non-equivalent pre-test/post-test design, we found that grade 4–6 students who were in classrooms where the teacher provided regular and appropriate use of the electronic portfolio tool ePEARL (i.e., medium–high implementation condition, n = 7 classrooms and 121 students), compared to control students (n = 7 classrooms and 175 students) who did not use ePEARL, showed significant improvements (p < .05) in their writing skills on a standardized literacy measure (i.e., the constructed response subtest of the Canadian Achievement Test-4th ed.) and certain metacognitive skills measured via student self-report. The results of this study indicate that teaching with ePEARL has positive impacts on students’ literacy and self-regulated learning skills when the tool is used regularly and integrated into classroom instruction.     

The contribution of pupil,classroom and school level characteristics to primary school pupils' ICT competences: A performance-based approach

The central aim of this study was to investigate which pupil, classroom and school level characteristics are related to primary school pupils' actual ICT competences. A sample of 378 pupils in 58 schools in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) completed a performance-based ICT competence test in order to measure their actual proficiency in retrieving and processing digital information, and in communicating through a computer. To gather information on the factors at each different level, questionnaires were administered to the pupils, their parents (n = 378), their teachers (n = 83) and the ICT coordinators (n = 58) of the schools. Pupils on average have a low to medium score on the developed ICT competence test. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis with multilevel design show that the differences in ICT competences can be mainly attributed to differences in pupil level characteristics. The results indicate that especially non-ICT related pupil characteristics are associated with differences in primary school pupils' ICT competences, such as introjected regulation, controlling learning style, analytic intelligence, sex and socioeconomic status. Furthermore, the final model also indicates that parental ICT attitudes are related to primary school pupils' ICT competences. With regard to the classroom level characteristics, educational use of ICT as an information tool is significantly related to pupils' ICT competences.     

Attitudinal and experiential predictors of technological expertise

This study sought to clarify which computer and Internet skills and experiences differentiate technological expertise and to identify predictors of this expertise. Two hundred and fifty-eight incoming university students were surveyed on Internet and computer experiences, skills, and attitudes. Six specific Internet and computer uses that differentiate technological expertise were identified based on frequency of use. Males and those who own computers had greater technological expertise. Factor analyses identified two skill factors (Internet skills, Computer/Math skills), three experience factors (Internet, Computer, Recreational Use of Internet), five attitude factors (Importance of Internet and computer knowledge, Computer aversive, Internet and computer comfort/competency, Internet and computer overuse, Technology aversive). These factors as well as gender, computer ownership, and weekly computer and Internet use were entered as independent variables in a general linear model (GLM) which was then used to determine which factors affected technological expertise. The overall GLM was significant (R² = .414, F = 5.85, p < .001). Internet and computer skills and computer abuse were the strongest predictors of technological expertise. Weekly Internet use, Internet and computer comfort/competency also were predictors, and gender was almost significant (p = .056) as a predictor. Neither computer ownership nor other Internet and computer attitudes were significant predictors.     

Construction of an instrument to measure student information and communication technology skills,experience and attitudes to e-learning

Over the past 20 years self-report measures of healthcare students’ information and communication technology skills have been developed with limited validation. Furthermore, measures of student experience of e-learning emerged but were not repeatedly used with diverse populations. A psychometric approach with five phases was used to develop and test a new self-report measure of skills and experience with information and communication technology and attitudes to computers in education. Phase 1: Literature review and identification of key items. Phase 2: Development and refinement of items with expert panel (n = 16) and students (n = 3) to establish face and content validity. Phase 3: Pilot testing of draft instrument with graduate pre-registration nursing students (n = 60) to assess administration procedures and acceptability of the instrument. Phase 4: Test–retest with further sample of graduate pre-registration nursing students (n = 70) tested stability and internal consistency. Phase 5: Main study with pre-registration nursing students (n = 458), further testing of internal consistency. The instrument proved to have moderate test–retest stability and the sub-scales had acceptable internal consistency. When used with a larger, more diverse population the psychometric properties were more variable. Further work is needed to refine the instrument with specific reference to possible cultural and linguistic response patterns and technological advances.     

Gender and socioeconomic related differences in performance based ICT competences

In the past, several studies have investigated the relationship between gender and socioeconomic status on the one hand, and students' ICT competences on the other. In this research field, two problems seem to occur. First, research findings are inconclusive. Second, most studies are conducted from the perspective of self-perceived ICT competence. Such measures suffer from self-reported bias, as they depend on students' own judgment of their ICT competences. This study aims to tackle both these problems. First, the outline of the design of a computer and performance-based assessment test that measures primary school students' ICT competences in a direct and valid way is presented. Second, the relationship between gender and socioeconomic status, and the students' results on the test i.e. their actual ICT competences was investigated. The performance-based test was administered to a representative sample of 378 sixth-grade students of 58 primary schools. The results of this study indicate that primary school students in general have particular difficulties in higher-order ICT competences that focus on communicating in a socially acceptable and clearly understandable way. Moreover, results show that girls have better technical ICT skills and higher-order ICT competences than boys. With regard to socioeconomic status, results show that the educational level of the mother is positively related to both students' technical ICT skills and higher-order ICT competences.     

Assessing Web interaction with recollection: Age-related and task-related differences

The current study examined how young (n = 26; mean = 22.31 years) and older Internet users (n = 24; mean = 64.54 years) performed when they had to select and recollect information displayed in Web pages. Content-oriented and navigation-oriented information-finding tasks were used during the study phase. At test, the method made use of two recognition paradigms designed to assess recollection and the nature of representations in memory: namely, the remember/know procedure and a forced-choice recognition procedure which made it possible to compare the retrieval of detailed (verbatim-based) and semantic (gist-based) representations. The evidence from both procedures suggested that remembering was less contextualised in older participants. Furthermore, the idea that content-oriented searches impose greater processing demands than navigation-oriented searches in Web pages was confirmed for both age groups. Interestingly, the older Internet users experienced more difficulties in finding targets in navigation-oriented searches than in content-oriented searches.     

Information and communication technologies in the life of university freshmen: An analysis of change

The passage from secondary school to university puts students in an environment with different expectations. Not only the expectations towards learning might change, but also towards ICT competences and computer use. The purpose of this article is to find out whether freshmen, after 6 months at the university, changed their self-perception of ICT competences and computer use in comparison with their behaviour at secondary school, and what factors can explain the self-perception of ICT competences and computer use in secondary school, in the university and their possible change. Based on a panel research among 714 freshmen of a large university, this article answers the following questions: (1) What is the self-perception of ICT competences among freshmen and is there a change in this self-perception 6 months after entering the university? (2) How often and for what purpose do freshmen use a computer and is there a change in the frequency of the use of a computer? (3) What factors might influence this attitude, behaviour, and possible change? In function of the basic components of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003) hypotheses was developed and tested to answer these questions. Students who consider the computer to be a useful instrument, have control over the computer, possess a certain level of Internet competence, and are at ease with computers are more likely to have the skills needed to maintain a computer, to develop a web site, and to use basic ICT skills. The predictors have little influence on Internet usage. The same predictors contribute modestly to the explanation of the different frequencies of computer use, and a few of the predictors explain parts of change in ICT skills and frequency of computer use.     

Prevalence of perceived stress,symptoms of depression and sleep disturbances in relation to information and communication technology (ICT) use among young adults – an explorative prospective study

The aim of this study was to prospectively investigate whether high quantity of information and communication technology (ICT) use is a risk factor for developing psychological symptoms among young ICT users. A cohort of college students responded to a questionnaire at baseline and at 1-year follow-up (n = 1127). Exposure variables, such as different types of ICT use, and effect variables, such as perceived stress, symptoms of depression and sleep disturbances, were assessed. Prevalence ratios were computed, based on symptom-free subjects at baseline and prevalence of symptoms at follow-up. For women, high combined use of computer and mobile phone at baseline was associated with increased risk of reporting prolonged stress and symptoms of depression at follow-up, and number of short message service (SMS) messages per day was associated with prolonged stress. Also online chatting was associated with prolonged stress, and e-mailing and online chatting were associated with symptoms of depression, while Internet surfing increased the risk of developing sleep disturbances. For men, number of mobile phone calls and SMS messages per day were associated with sleep disturbances. SMS use was also associated with symptoms of depression. The findings suggest that ICT may have an impact on psychological health, although causal mechanisms are unclear.     

Assessing tenth-grade students’ problem solving ability online in the area of Earth sciences

This study examined tenth-grade students’ (n = 263) problem solving ability (PSA) online through assessing students’ domain-specific knowledge (DSK) and reasoning skills (RS) in Earth sciences as well as their attitudes toward (AT) Earth sciences related topics in a secondary school of Taiwan. The students’ PSA was evaluated based on a previous model (Chang, C. Y. (2004, November 26–27). Trends in assessing student earth science problem solving ability: the importance of domain-specific knowledge and reasoning skills in earth sciences. Paper presented at the Seoul Conference for International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO), Seoul, Korea; Chang, C. Y., & Barufaldi, J. P. (submitted). Does problem solving = prior knowledge + reasoning skills in science? An exploratory study. Journal of Experimental Education; Chang, C. Y., & Weng, Y. H. (2002). An exploratory study on students’ problem-solving ability in earth science. International Journal of Science Education, 24(5), 441–452) which empirically established that students’ PSA is a composite of DSK, RS and AT subscales. Major findings are as follows: (a) The correlation coefficient among students’ DSK, RS and AT was relatively small, indicating that these subscales might have successfully represented different constructs of students’ PSA; (b) a significantly positive correlation existed between students’ PSA total scores and each subscale. It is, therefore, suggested that students’ PSA may be potentially assessed online by measuring their essential components in the area of Earth sciences.     

Motivation of computer based learning across adulthood

This research investigates learning motivation of young and old adults. In detail, we explore motives of young and old adults to participate in two ICT-course settings: e-learning and face-to-face courses. In a first study young (n = 53, M = 26.0 years) and old (n = 55, M = 69.8 years) participants of e-learning courses completed an online questionnaire on learning motivation and personality. In a second study young (n = 46, M = 26.7 years) and old (n = 57, M = 69.5 years) participants of face-to-face ICT courses completed the same learning motivation questionnaire and questions about personality, subjective age and life satisfaction. Exploratory factor analysis revealed four factors of learning motivation: belonging, instrumentality, personal growth, and competition. As expected, older adults expressed stronger motives of belonging and personal growth, and thus expressed a stronger interest in self-determined and intrinsic learning. Young adults, in contrast, strongly endorsed competitive-related motives of learning. Instrumentality was influenced by the interaction of age and subjective age; older participants showed higher instrumentality when the difference between chronological age and subjective age is big. Findings of this study shed new light on assumptions of socioemotional selectivity theory.     

Assessment of 21st century ICT skills in Chile: Test design and results from high school level students

This paper describes a study that evaluates fifteen-year-old Chilean students Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills. The paper presents an operational definition of ICT skills, an instrument measuring these skills as well as the students' results in the test. The definition of ICT skills used considers Chile's curricular framework, functional and cognitive skills. Specifically, ICT skills were defined as the capacity to solve problems of information, communication and knowledge in digital environments. A performance-based assessment was designed in a virtual environment to measure these skills. The analysis of the results showed that the majority of students were able to solve tasks related to the use of information as consumers, i.e., approximately three quarters of the students were able to search for information and half of them were also able to organize and manage digital information. Additionally, they show that very few students were able to succeed in tasks related to the use of information as producers, i.e., only one third of the students were able to develop their own ideas in a digital environment and less than one fifth were able to refine digital information and create a representation in a digital environment. Socioeconomic group, access, daily use and confidence in doing ICT-related activities were all positively associated with higher scores, showing the need to implement strategies to compensate this inequality, possibly by explicitly defining these aims in the national curriculum.     

A 10-year assessment of information and communication technology tasks required in undergraduate agriculture courses

This study sought to assess required information and communication technology (ICT) tasks in selected undergraduate agriculture courses in a land-grant university during a 10-year period. Selected agriculture faculty members in the fall 1999 (n = 63), 2004 (n = 55), and 2009 (n = 64) semesters were surveyed to determine the ICT tasks they required of students. There were significant (p < .05) increases in the number of required Internet and electronic mail tasks between 1999 and 2009; but no significant changes in the number of word processing, computer graphics, spreadsheet, database, or miscellaneous ICT tasks required over the period. In 1999, three specific tasks (receive electronic mail, search the Internet, and type a lab or project report) were required in more than 50% of courses; in 2009, these three tasks plus three additional tasks (send electronic mail, submit assignments as attached electronic mail files, and use Blackboard^© to acquire course information) were required in a majority of courses. Faculty with higher levels of self-perceived ICT skills and those teaching higher-level courses tended to require larger and more diverse sets of ICT tasks than other faculty. Course level explained the largest proportion of unique variance in the number of required spreadsheet, word processing, computer graphics, and miscellaneous ICT tasks. Self-perceived ICT skills and course level explained approximately equal amounts of the unique variance in total ICT tasks required. Both the quantity and complexity of ICT in undergraduate agriculture courses should be increased.     

An online tool to identify white-collar worker profiles in relation to their ICT skills and mental strain

The introduction of Internet and Information and communication Technologies (ICT) in offices is a global phenomenon that transformed white-collar worker job demands. Although there are several studies of e-skills and mental workload for central countries, there is a lack of similar studies for the Latin American context. An online snowball sampled (n = 352) survey was developed and validated by the authors (internal consistency = 0.7). We characterized ICT worker profiles from e-skills and these dimensions: attitudes toward, resources usage and technology dependency. Mental Strain was assessed with raw task load index (RTLX) and correlated with the proposed profiles by means of paired T-tests and Mann–Whitney Tests. The sample was characterized by 7.2% of non visual display terminal users and 92.8% of visual display terminal, ICT skilled users. Of the latter, 30.7% were ICT practitioners, 30.4% were ICT Users and 27.2% were E-Business Users. Non VDT users’ mental strain was statistically meaningful smaller than VDT–ICT skilled users’ mental workload. No statistical differences were found in RTLX results when comparing ICT skilled user profiles. Non VDT users can be identified from ICT skilled Users by their lower ITC Dependency and minor use of ICT resources. There were no differences in those dimensions among ICT skilled Profiles. Attitude toward these technologies was a distinct factor for ICT Users in relation to ICT Practitioners and ITC Business Users. The application of this tool in peripheral and central countries would allow a complete ergonomical characterization of white-collar workers within the Information Society.     

Institutionalised ICT use in primary education: A multilevel analysis

This study uses a multilayered framework of different independent school and teacher variables to study which factors are related to the use of ICT for teaching and learning in Flemish (Belgium) primary schools. Special attention is paid to widely accepted technology uses by teachers, which is labelled as ‘Institutionalised ICT use’. A questionnaire has been administered to a representative teacher sample (N = 433) in 53 Flemish primary schools. Factor analyses and multilevel hierarchical regression analyses have been conducted. The results of the multilevel analysis show that ‘Institutionalised ICT use’ should not only be considered as a teacher phenomenon but also as a school phenomenon. The null model shows that about 14% of the variance in ICT use of teachers is due to between-school differences. In a final model, the variables ‘ICT professional development’, ‘ICT competences’, ‘developmental educational beliefs’, and ‘schools' ICT vision and policy’ showed a positive association with ‘Institutionalised ICT use’.     

Do students need teacher’s initiation in online collaborative learning?

As more and more people use computers to complete their work and solve problems in the workplace, computing education is emphasized for students of all levels and disciplines in Taiwan. However, the computing education in Taiwan can hardly be recognized as effective and satisfactory. Many inappropriate examples that lack context are used in teaching and textbooks that may result in employees with low competence and insufficient ability for collaborative working. Students who grow up in this learning context usually lack the ability to seek information and solve problems by themselves. In this regard, the author redesigned a course and adopted online collaborative learning with initiation to establish the essential knowledge for students’ collaboration in the initial stage of a course. This study conducted an experiment that included 169 undergraduates from three class sections – the first two from an academic university (Case 1, n = 68; Case 2, n = 68) and the last one from a university of science and technology (Case 3, n = 33) – taught by the same teacher under the same course name and the same course website. The results show that students who received online collaborative learning with initiation had higher grades than those without. The author further discusses the implications for teachers, schools, and scholars who plan to provide online courses for their students, particularly computing courses.     

Working conditions at recycling centres in Sweden - Physical and psychosocial work environment

The number of jobs at recycling centres are increasing, at the same time as there are indications of work environment problems. The aim of this paper was to investigate physical and psychosocial working conditions for employees at recycling centres in Sweden, to describe how they were perceived, to compare differences between subgroups, and further to identify proposals for improvement. Employees at 42 recycling centres (n = 122) responded a postal questionnaire. Of these 32 employees from 16 recycling centres were interviewed, as also their employer (n = 16).The work at recycling centres was reported to be a meaningful service job comprising many social interactions with users, but also substantial physical strain. There was a high frequency of injuries and minor injuries. Several risks were identified. There is a need for several preventive actions, e.g. better planning when building recycling centres, including better machines and equipment and more training, especially in handling hazardous waste.