How Students Use the Internet for Education

"While the majority of children between ages 12 and 17 go online, there hasn't been a lot of research about how students use the Web for schoolwork," says Steve Jones, professor and head of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who was part of the team guiding the survey research.

The research appears in "The Digital Disconnect: The Widening Gap Between Internet-Savvy Students and Their Schools," released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

According to the survey, roughly 60 percent of Americans under age 18 are Internet users, and one of their most common activities while on the Internet is schoolwork.

"This study is important because it illuminates the role the Internet plays in education and student attitudes towards the broader learning that can take place online," Jones says.

Other key findings:

* Students who rely on the Internet to help them do their schoolwork say they complete their schoolwork more quickly and are less likely to get frustrated by material they don't understand.

* Most students use the Internet to do research to help them write papers or complete class work, correspond with other classmates, and share tips about favorite Web sites.

* Students report a difference between how they use the Internet for school, during the school day, and while under teacher direction. For the most part, students' educational use of the Internet occurs outside of the school day and the direction of their teachers.

* Students say they face several roadblocks when it comes to using the Internet at schools, such as the quality of access and blocking and filtering software.

"Probably the most interesting finding in this report is the degree to which teens are complaining about not using the Net very much in school, despite how much money has gone toward wiring schools for the Web," Jones says. "It shows that educators are still not quite comfortable with using the technology in course planning and in the classroom, and have not been able to fit it into the school day."

Among the suggestions students gave to improve Internet access in the schools were better coordination of out-of-school Internet educational use, increased Internet quality of access, and improved professional development and technical assistance for teachers.

The study was based on information gathered from 14 gender-balanced, racially diverse, focus groups of 136 students from 36 different schools. Nearly 200 students voluntarily submitted online essays about their use of the Internet for school to supplement findings of the study's focus groups.