A regression analysis of elementary students ICT usage vis à vis access to technology in Singapore

Tay, L. Y., Nair, S. S., & Lim, C. P. (2017). A regression analysis of elementary students’ ICT usage vis-à-vis access to technology in Singapore. Educational Media International, 54(1), 34-47. doi:10.1080/09523987.2017.1324362

Background

The authors highlighted that, although providing an adequate information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure—computing devices and Internet connection—was a necessary condition for facilitating ICT use in educational institutions, the provision and equipment alone would likely be of limited impact unless knowledge about the use of technology in different settings and more effective strategies could be developed.

Aims

The authors explored how ICT infrastructure, a one-to-one computing programme and student ICT activities in school affected ICT usage in the teaching of English, Mathematics and Science in Singapore.

Sample

The participants were 360 Primary 5 students from three Singapore primary schools. They took an adapted version of the ICT Familiarity Component for Student Questionnaire by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) on the availability of technological devices in school and ICT use by the students.

Method

Three sets of hierarchical regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship and association between an ICT infrastructure, the programme ensuring each child had a computing device and student ICT activities in school. The mediating effects of student ICT activities in school and the programme ensuring each child had a computing device were also examined.

Findings

The results demonstrated that the provision of an ICT infrastructure in schools had facilitated the use of ICT in teaching and learning and the equipping of every child with a personal computing device and the supporting infrastructure, especially an Internet connection, had resulted in a higher frequency of ICT use for the learning of English.

However, the results also indicated that how ICT was being implemented in schools would be more important than the ICT infrastructure or students’ ownership of computing devices. Browsing of the Internet for information and accessing school teaching management systems were the most common student ICT activities across the three schools. Online drill and practice was associated more closely with the learning of Mathematics than English. In addition, elements of online collaboration with classmates and peers through ICT were present in the learning of English but not Mathematics and Science.

Implications

The authors emphasized the importance of the support of pedagogical strategies to promote the use of computing devices or even one-to-one computing. The use of ICT was still relatively rare and studies would need to look at the strategies to be used in different subjects as these would vary according to the needs of the subjects.

Original article retrieved from Taylor & Francis.