Student Access to Educational Technology SURWEB Summative Evaluation Report 1995-2000

Chapters:5

1| 2| 3| 4| 5

References

Additional References

Appendices:

A | B | C | D | E
F | G | H | I | J

Contacts:

SURWEB
Dr. F. Lynn Bills
Director
435-637-1173

Media, Analysis & Practice
Kathleen Tyner
About the Author

Student Access to Educational Technology

In addition to surveys of teachers, evidence about technology access was gathered from over 3500 Utah students in Grades 4-12 who responded to a questionnaire in 1998 (Tyner, 1999) and a follow-up survey of over 800 elementary and middle schools students conducted in 2000 (Tyner & Roush, 2000). Very few students in the baseline study, or in the follow-up study in 2000 reported that they “never used” computers. In 1999, 1.2% of elementary students and 1.4% of middle school students reported that they had “never used” a computer. In 2000, the frequencies dropped to 0.2% for elementary students, but increased to 2.4% for middle school students, although the increase is not statistically significant and still extremely low.

Table 5: Where Students Use Computers: Comparison of Responses by Frequency & Year compares students responses about where and how often they use educational technology resources.

Table 5: Where Students Use Computers: Comparison of Responses by Frequency & Year

Location (Ranked in Order of Frequency for Elementary)	Elementary Weekly & Daily 1999 (n=343) 2000 (n=559)		Location (Ranked in Order of Frequency for Middle School)	Middle School Weekly & Daily 1999 (n=1073) 2000 (n=222 )
	1999	2000		1999	2000
At Home	57.1	62.0	At Home	58.1	80.0
In the Classroom by Myself	43.0	43.4	In the Classroom by Myself	31.4	36.8
In the Media Center by Myself	27.1	30.6	In the Media Center by Myself	11.5	8.3
In the Classroom in Teams	33.7	26.3	In the Classroom in Teams	17.2	40.6
In the Computer Lab in Teams	11.9	43.4	In the Computer Lab in Teams	4.6	12.9
In the Media Center in Teams	17.7	17.5	In the Media Center in Teams	8.9	5.2
At a Friend or Relative’s House	25.5	24.1	At a Friend or Relative’s House	25.9	29.9
At the Library	15.3	23.2	At the Library	18.3	7.0

As can be seen in Table 5, students are increasingly using computers outside the classroom, especially at home, raising “digital divide” issues of equity and fairness for instructional design. At least one school in the southeastern region is piloting an innovative school-to-home laptop lending program that specifically addresses this issue (Tyner & Roush, 2000). In addition, although teachers say that classroom computers would significantly increase their ability to effectively integrate technology in the classroom, the Utah students indicate that computers are used in computer labs more than ever.

The 1999 baseline study, Student Uses of Technology in Rural Utah, is located on-line at www.wested.org/tie/surweb. Complete results of the 2000 study, are located in Appendix I: Student Uses of Technologies for Learning: A Survey of SURWEB Users in Utah.

Elementary

Location

Middle School