Education and ICT: Documenting the relationship Victor Thiessen Dalhousie University E. Dianne Looker Acadia University

Aims Examine access to, use of and facility with Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Document the relationships between this access, use and facility and educational experiences and outcomes for youth. Examine how background factors such as gender and socio-economic status affect these relationships.

The data 1. SITES (Second Information Technology in Education Study) 2. YITS/PISA 15-year-old students 3. YITS 18 year olds 4. NLSYC

Measures: Home and school access Frequency of ICT use Types of ICT use Self reported skill levels Reading achievement scores (from PISA)

Results SITES (school based) data:  Educational software used in fewer subject areas in rural schools.  Rural coordinators say they are less prepared to support a range of ICT activities.  Development of ICT is less of a priority in rural schools.  Fewer rural than urban schools have their own website.  Rural students less likely to use ICT to work collaboratively with others or learn programming

AIM  Some differences due to school size rather than rural location (SITES).  Rural schools have MORE computers per student (SITES); rural students use computers more at school (YITS/PISA).  Urban schools report more barriers to ICT use (especially tech. support & cultural incompatibility) (SITES).  Rural & urban students have SAME LEVELS of ICT use (YITS/PISA).  Rural & urban students have similar attitudes to ICT (GSS and YITS/PISA).

Findings from YITS/PISA (15 year olds) Focus on gender differences Key variables: home and school access “educational use” (no games or ) Reading achievement scores as outcomes

Males use computer more everywhere

Boys do more things on computers

Boys rate their skills higher

Relationship between educational computer use & reading achievement is curvilinear

The pattern of the relationship differs for females and males

Girls’ reading achievement and educational computer use, by mother’s education

Boys’ reading achievement and educational computer use, by mother’s education

Should we try to eliminate the digital divides in ICT use? This is the usual assumption of those who write about any of the digital divides It assumes that the more ICT is used, the better But ICT is merely a tool to improve human capital formation Does heavy ICT use do that?

Next steps Define what might be optimal levels of ICT use Assess the gender, class, race/ethnicity and locality gaps in optimal use Explore the characteristics of schools and homes that promote optimal levels of ICT use Explore the characteristics of schools that produce equity in optimal use Explore other relationships between education and ICT