Current Trends in Computer Use of Elementary School Students: An International Comparison

Abstract The findings from various researches on technology diffusion and ICT utilization in education point out the importance of student factor in integration of technology into education. Students’ choice of how to use ICT is an important determinant that increases or decreases the benefit from ICT utilization. In this study, we investigate and compare students’ choice of how to use computers based on gender and computer availability at home and school variables. In the study, we analyze data on 276,731 15-years old elementary school students. This study has an extensive coverage including 41 countries. The data are collected by ICT Familiarity Component for the Student Questionnaire (2009) and obtained from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) database. The fourth, fifth, and sixty questions in the Students’ Questionnaire are about computer use trends of students at home and school. We test whether the computer use trends of students at home and school differ based on whether they have access to computers at home and school as well as their gender. Our findings show that gender is one of important factors on computer use trends. We also find that access to computers at home and school has also an impact on students’ trends in various ways.