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Project Eagle Research Capsules (PERC) #16
September 2004
Summary of Results from Two Recent Reports on Some Positives and Negatives of the Internet and Education
(Economic and Social Research Council)
July 2004
Similar to studies conducted in the U. S. during the past few years, and reported on in earlier Project Eagle Research Capsules, this British-based project explored Internet use randomly among 1511 children aged 9-19 and 906 parents of the 9-17 year olds. The data were collected between January and March 2004. Presented here are some significant findings from this major national, in-home, face-to-face survey.
- Internet access/use in the United Kingdom (UK) is comparable to that in the U. S. Use is widespread among UK young people, considerably higher than among adults, and among the highest in Europe.
- Home access is growing. 75% of 9-19 year olds have accessed the Internet from a computer
at home. Currently, 74% have Internet access
via a computer, games console or digital
television, while 23% have never accessed the Internet on a computer from
home, and 29% currently lack such access.
- School
access is near universal. 92% have accessed the Internet at school, and 24% have
access at school but not at home. However,
64% have also used the Internet elsewhere.
- Homes with children lead in gaining internet access. They are also
acquiring multiple computers plus broadband access to the Internet. 36% have more than one computer at home; 24% have broadband access.
- Socio-economic differences are sizeable. 88% of middle class but only 61% of working
class children have accessed the Internet at home; 86% of children in areas
of low deprivation in England have used the Internet on a computer at home
compared with 66% in areas of high deprivation.
- Most are daily or weekly users. 9-19 year olds
are mainly divided
between daily users (41%) and weekly users (43%). Only 13% are occasional users, and 3% count as non-users. Most use it for searching and homework. Among the 84% of 9-19 year olds who use the Internet daily or weekly, 90% use it to
do work for school or college, 94% use it to get information for other things, 72% use it to send and receive emails, 70% to play games online,
55% to send/receive instant messages, 45% to download music and 21% to use chat rooms. 44% look for information
on careers and further education, 40% look for products or shop online, and 26% read the news.
- Some use it for less-approved activities. Among 12-19 year olds who go online daily or weekly,
21% admit to having copied something from the Internet for a school assignment.
- Not all use is receptive - some is interactive. 44% have completed a quiz online, 25% have
sent an email or text message
to a Website, 22% have voted for something online, 17% have sent pictures or stories to a Website, 17% have contributed to a message board,
and 8% have filled in a form. Most
active of all, 34% have set up their own Website. Further, 9% have offered advice to others, while 8% have signed a petition.
- Parents underestimate children's negative experiences. One third of 9-19 year olds who go online
at least once a week report having
received unwanted sexual (31%) or nasty comments (33%) via email, chat, instant message or text message. Only 7% of parents think that their child
has received sexual comments, and only 4% think that their child has been bullied online.
- Children divulge personal information online. 86% of parents whose child has home access
to the Internet do not allow
their children to give out personal information online (though only 49% of children acknowledge this). 46% of 9-19 year olds who go online at least once
a week say that they have given out
personal information, such as their full name, age, email address, phone number, hobbies or name of their school, to someone that
they met on the Internet. Yet
only 5% of parents think their child has given out such information.
- Parents' view of the Internet is ambivalent - much more so than for other
media in the home. They are concerned that it may lead children to become isolated from others, expose children to sexual and/or violent images,
displace more worthwhile activities
and risk their privacy. However, 73% believe that the Internet can help their child do better at school and help them learn worthwhile
things. Even children, like their parents, are sensitive to media anxieties. While awareness of risks is important,
widespread anxiety may also
contribute to restrictions on young people's use of the Internet, undermining exploration, expression and creativity.
(University of Pennsylvania)
Robert Zemske and William F. Massy
June 2004
A major new 61-page study from the
University of Pennsylvania attempts to answer the question, "Why did the boom
in e-learning go bust?" In it, the authors tracked the changing attitudes
about and perceptions of e-learning by faculty and technical staff over a
period of 18 months. They examined a wide sample of colleges and universities
with substantial investments in e-learning, and also mapped the changing
supply of e-learning providers and products.
Zemsky and Massy point out in their
report: "In retrospect, the rush to e-learning produced more capacity than
any rational analysis would have said was needed. In a fundamental way, the
boom-bust cycle in e-learning stemmed from an attempt to compress the process
of innovation itself.
"The entrepreneurs' enthusiasm produced
too many new ventures pushing too many untested products - products that,
in their initial form, turned out not to deliver as much value as promised.
...The hard fact is that e-learning took off before people really knew how
to use it."
Their conclusion is that e-learning
will become pervasive only when faculty change how they teach-not before.
They reached this conclusion by examining and rejecting three of e-learning's
basic assumptions:
- If we build it they will come. Despite massive investments in both
hardware and software, there has yet to emerge a
viable market for e-learning products. Only course management systems (principally
BlackBoard and WebCT) -- and PowerPoint lectures (the electronic equivalent of clip-art)
have been widely employed. At the institutions participating in the study, more than 80 percent
of their enrollments in "online" courses came from students already on their
campuses.
- The kids will take to e-learning like ducks to water. Students do want to be connected, but principally to one another.
They want to be entertained, principally by games, music, and movies. They
want to present themselves and their work. E-learning at its best is seen
as a convenience and at its worst as a distraction.
- E-learning will force a change in the way we teach.
Only higher education's bureaucratic processes have proved more
immutable to fundamental change. Even when they use e-learning products and devices, most faculty still teach as they were taught: they
stand in the front of a classroom providing lectures intended to
supply the basic knowledge the students need. Hence, we see the success
of course management systems and PowerPoint -- software packages
that focus on the distribution of materials rather than on teaching
itself.
www.spjc.edu/eagle/research/perc/perc16.htm
For a list of previous Project Eagle Research Capsules, go to www.spcollege.edu/eagle/research/perc/index.htm
For more information, contact the project manager: lechnerj@spcollege.edu
The contents of PERC were developed under a grant from the U. S. Department of Education (DOE). However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the DOE, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
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