Chapter 7 General Findings from Secondary School Sector
7.5 Student learning
7.5.7 Perceived impacts of IT on students
Table 7.39: Heads’ perceptions of impacts of ITEd on students (School Heads’ Questionnaire, Q. 9c)
SD N % of heads choosing the option
Impacts Mean
(0-4) Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral/
uncertain
Disagree Strongly disagree
Increased subject knowledge 3.1 0.6 368 20.9 70.1 8.4 0.5 0.0
Improved computer skills 3.5 0.5 369 47.2 51.2 1.6 0.0 0.0
Enhanced creativity 2.8 0.7 369 15.2 55.6 27.6 1.4 0.3
Improved communication and expression skills
2.6 0.8 369 11.1 44.2 37.1 6.8 0.8
Strengthened co-operation with others 2.6 0.8 369 9.2 44.4 42.0 2.7 1.6 Weakened interpersonal skills due to
excessive time spent on computers
2.1 0.9 369 6.0 28.5 41.5 22.5 1.6
Negligence of school work due to excessive time spent on computers
1.9 1.0 369 5.4 22.0 37.1 31.2 4.3
Stimulated interest in learning 3.0 0.5 369 10.0 78.3 11.4 0.3 0.0
Increased initiative to learn 2.8 0.6 368 7.6 62.8 26.9 2.5 0.3
Increased confidence 2.6 0.7 367 6.0 52.0 39.2 2.5 0.3
Improved learning effectiveness 2.9 0.6 368 10.6 69.6 18.8 0.8 0.3
Widened perspective through enlarged social circle
2.4 0.8 368 4.9 39.1 44.6 10.6 0.8
More opportunity for being exposed to unhealthy information
2.6 0.9 366 9.6 53.3 24.3 11.8 1.1
Developed high-level thinking 2.4 0.7 366 4.4 34.4 54.9 6.3 0.0
As can be seen in Table 7.39 above (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 9c), the secondary school heads expressed a strong belief that ITEd has had an impact on students’ increased subject knowledge, improved computer skills and learning effectiveness, as well as affective factors including stimulated interest and, to a slightly lesser extent, increased initiative to learn. To a lesser extent but also quite strongly, the principals reported that ITEd has had impacts on enhanced creativity and confidence.
Only slightly more than half thought there has been an impact on improved communication and expression skills, strengthened co-operation with others. The majority of heads did not report any perceived negative impacts, except for the clear exception of 62.9% saying IT use creates more opportunity for being exposed to unhealthy information. The school heads’ mean ratings for corresponding items on the Preliminary Study were very similar to these. The example below from an interview with a school head indicates the impression that ITEd has had some impact:
Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector
Especially in the lower forms, teaching and learning are more interactive. Students are guided, in Project-Based Learning, to search for information and to use their minds to consider and discuss what is useful.
However, in the school heads’ interviews it was also observed that there have been some negative impacts. It has been noticed that student’s motivation to learn in class is lowered as they discovered a more dynamic channel on the Internet. Students’ focus in their study has been distracted by other attractions on the Internet/computer such as games. School heads reported they have discovered students who were absent from class playing on computers in the internet café nearby the school.
Similarly, as can be seen from Table 7.40 (Teachers’ Questionnaire item 14e), the secondary school teacher respondents also indicated their belief that IT has impacted on students’ increased subject knowledge and interest in learning (more than 83% agreeing or strongly agreeing with these impacts), improved learning effectiveness and easier and deeper understanding of the lesson and increased initiative to learn (close to or above 70%). On the other hand, only 31.8% of the teachers feel strongly that IT use has contributed to any clear progress in academic performance. This was further supported by the teacher focus group interviews, in which some of the teachers expressed the concern that the use of IT cannot help students to develop analytic skills because they often do little more than cut and paste information from the Internet without analyzing or synthesizing. The following quotations from teacher focus group interviews illustrate this concern:
Students like surfing on the net, so they will look for everything on the net. But they haven’t built up a continuous learning habit. They were asked to handle a 15-week project. They were supposed to post information onto the site and discuss with their classmates every week, but it was clear that they only did something to meet the deadlines. Their learning attitude is still quite passive.
Students are so used to getting a whole lot of information conveniently from the Internet that they have built up the habit of just glancing through the information instead of digesting it.
They are just collecting data, not analyzing and making use of data. They are moving backward in terms of learning.
This same idea also came through the student focus group interviews. While there are certainly signs of some shift in the students’ learning paradigm and they are now using the Internet extensively to search for information, there was little evidence of students being selective or critical of the credibility of the information and, when asked if their teachers teach them to search selectively and critically the majority said that they do not.
On the positive side, however, one group of teachers reported some of the benefits:
Students’ projects and essays are put on the intranet for sharing.
We use IT as a collective creative tool such as composition.
It was experienced in the arts class that teaching can be enhanced by using students as resources for information gathering and research before class. This practice helps students go through a self-learning process and actual class discussion can be enhanced and more productive.
Table 7.40: Teachers’ perceptions of benefits to students of IT use in their most satisfying lessons with IT (Teachers’ Questionnaire, Q. 14e)
% of teachers choosing the option
Benefits Mean
(0-4)
SE N
Strongly agree
Agree Neutral/
uncertain
Disagree Strongly disagree
Increased subject knowledge 3.1 0.01 6162 26.2 63.5 9.0 1.1 0.3
Improved computer skills 2.1 0.02 6088 5.9 33.4 36.8 17.1 6.8
Improved information processing ability
2.4 0.02 6080 7.0 44.9 32.3 11.0 4.7
Enhanced creativity 2.3 0.01 6094 7.2 40.6 36.0 11.9 4.3
Improved communication and expression skills
2.4 0.01 6085 7.4 43.8 33.5 11.6 3.8
Learned to co-operate with others 2.4 0.01 6096 7.1 43.8 31.7 12.5 4.9 Stimulated interest in learning 3.0 0.01 6160 18.0 65.8 14.4 1.3 0.5
Increased initiative to learn 2.7 0.01 6118 13.2 54.0 26.7 4.6 1.6
Increased confidence 2.5 0.01 6096 8.4 42.0 39.1 7.8 2.7
Improved learning effectiveness 2.8 0.01 6097 12.8 59.9 23.1 3.3 0.9
Enlarged social circle 1.9 0.02 6065 3.7 23.1 46.0 18.7 8.6
Widened perspective through more interaction with the outside world
2.4 0.01 6078 8.3 45.2 31.7 10.3 4.6
Greater concentration in learning 2.5 0.01 6104 7.8 44.4 37.8 7.8 2.3
Easier and deeper understanding of the lesson
2.8 0.01 6120 13.5 60.4 22.4 3.1 0.5
Clear progress in academic performance
2.2 0.01 6057 4.3 27.5 56.5 9.2 2.5
The heads’ and teachers’ perception of increased interest is further supported by the students’ views of what they have gained from IT use in class (Table 7.41, Students’ Questionnaire item 13b). Increased subject knowledge again has the highest proportions of students agreeing or strongly agreeing to it as an impact (78.9%, 74.1% and 73.5% of S2, S4 and S6 students respectively). The next highest is stimulated interest in learning (73.5% of S2 and 69.9% S4 students but only 64.3% of S6 students).
There are progressive decreases from S2 to S6 in the proportions agreeing or strongly agreeing on the impacts of several aspects including improved computer skills, improved information processing ability, enhanced creativity, improved communication and expression, improved co-operation with others, stimulated interest in learning, increased initiative to learn, increased confidence and enlarged social circle.
Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector
Table 7.41: Students’ perceptions of what they have gained from their lessons they like the most with IT application (Students’ Questionnaire, Q. 13b)
% of students choosing the option
Perceived gain Mean
(0-4)
SE N
Strongly Agree
Agree Neutral/
Uncertain
Disagree Strongly Disagree
Increased subject knowledge 3.0 0.02 2062 22.9 56.0 18.0 2.2 0.9
Improved computer skills 2.7 0.02 2063 20.6 41.4 27.5 9.0 1.6
Improved information processing ability
2.7 0.02 2061 15.3 45.4 30.0 7.8 1.5
Enhanced creativity 2.4 0.02 2059 13.4 32.9 40.1 11.1 2.5
Improved communication and expression skills
2.3 0.03 2058 11.7 28.9 41.9 14.5 3.0
Learned to co-operate with others
2.5 0.03 2055 13.2 39.3 32.9 11.5 3.1
Stimulated interest in learning 2.9 0.02 2058 23.4 50.1 19.9 4.8 1.8 Increased initiative to learn 2.5 0.02 2058 14.3 34.7 38.8 9.8 2.4
Increased confidence 2.2 0.03 2053 10.0 25.1 44.6 16.1 4.3
Improved learning effectiveness 2.6 0.02 2056 14.6 44.0 32.4 7.2 1.8
Enlarged social circle 2.3 0.03 2060 12.3 27.0 40.0 15.7 5.0
S2
Widened perspective through more interaction with the outside world
2.6 0.03 2056 18.7 37.4 30.9 9.3 3.8
Increased subject knowledge 2.8 0.02 1978 13.0 61.1 20.8 4.3 0.8
Improved computer skills 2.2 0.03 1980 9.4 30.2 36.2 20.5 3.7
Improved information processing ability
2.3 0.03 1977 7.8 37.4 37.1 14.8 3.0
Enhanced creativity 2.2 0.02 1979 6.0 28.3 44.4 18.1 3.2
Improved communication and expression skills
2.1 0.02 1974 5.6 28.7 42.1 19.6 4.1
Learned to co-operate with others
2.2 0.03 1980 6.7 32.6 39.8 16.7 4.2
Stimulated interest in learning 2.8 0.02 1980 14.9 55.0 22.3 6.5 1.4 Increased initiative to learn 2.4 0.02 1977 9.0 36.0 40.3 12.1 2.6
Increased confidence 2.0 0.02 1978 5.2 19.7 50.3 19.0 5.7
Improved learning effectiveness 2.6 0.02 1979 9.6 49.3 30.8 8.2 2.1
Enlarged social circle 2.0 0.03 1973 6.6 18.9 46.2 21.0 7.4
S4
Widened perspective through more interaction with the outside world
2.4 0.03 1973 11.3 36.8 33.9 13.4 4.6
Increased subject knowledge 2.8 0.02 1792 10.3 63.2 20.9 4.5 1.1
Improved computer skills 1.9 0.04 1792 5.8 21.4 32.5 33.5 6.8
Improved information processing ability
2.1 0.04 1792 5.9 29.9 35.5 23.1 5.6
Enhanced creativity 1.8 0.03 1794 2.8 19.8 40.6 30.5 6.3
Improved communication and expression skills
1.9 0.02 1791 3.8 26.1 37.0 27.1 6.1
Learned to co-operate with others
2.0 0.03 1793 3.7 27.8 34.8 27.6 6.1
Stimulated interest in learning 2.6 0.02 1791 9.4 54.9 24.9 8.5 2.4 Increased initiative to learn 2.2 0.03 1791 4.9 33.1 40.4 18.0 3.6
Increased confidence 1.8 0.03 1793 2.4 15.3 46.4 28.5 7.4
Improved learning effectiveness 2.4 0.03 1793 7.1 46.8 31.0 12.2 2.9
Enlarged social circle 1.6 0.03 1792 2.6 11.1 40.2 34.2 11.9
S6
Widened perspective through more interaction with the outside world
2.2 0.03 1789 9.7 34.1 31.5 18.0 6.7
The above patterns are supported further by the students’ perceptions of the impact of their teachers using IT as opposed to using it themselves in class (Students’ Questionnaire item 10). 68.5% of S2 students, 62.6% of S4 students and 51.4% of S6 students agreed or strongly agreed that classes have become more interesting as a result of their teachers using IT – a quite substantial decrease in the proportions of S6 students. Only around half of the S2 and S4 students (47.8% to 54.6%) and around 42% of the S6 students agreed or strongly agreed that the teachers’ use of IT has made it easier for
them to-understand subject content and to tackle some of their learning problems. Very few of the secondary students seemed to have a strong agreement that IT use has improved their academic performance. This perception is also supported by the student focus group interview data, in which most of the students said they thought IT may be of some help in their studies through giving them easier access to information and a wider view of the world, but that there has been no great improvement in their results or examination marks as a consequence of using IT. Quite a high proportion (65.3% of S2 and 64.9% of S4 and 71.6% of S6) thought students without home computers would be disadvantaged. Parents, on the other hand, were less sure about the impacts of home computers on their teenagers’ academic results, with around half or slightly above saying there was no impact (Parents’ Questionnaire item 4a). It may be interesting to note that slightly more parents of S4 students indicated the belief that home computers had negative impacts on their teenagers’
achievement, however these percentages are quite low (33% of S4 parents compared to 25.3% and 21.5% of S2 and S6).
Generally the mean ratings shown in Table 7.40 (Teachers’ Questionnaire item 14e) are slightly higher relative to the corresponding means in the Preliminary Study, but only by half a point or less. Similarly the mean ratings shown in Table 7.41 (Students’ Questionnaire item 13b) are slightly higher relative to the corresponding means in the Preliminary Study, but only by half a point or less.
It must be noted, however, that while the qualitative data suggest that principals, teachers and students themselves think IT use has had an impact on student outcomes, the support for this from the qualitative data is more conservative. School heads and teachers expressed similar opinions, that IT is important to the future development of Hong Kong but that it is only a tool and, by itself has not had any impact on achievement scores, examination results, attitudes, analytical skills or problem solving skills and will not bring about any paradigm shift. They uniformly believed that to bring this about it is necessary to change a combination of factors including class size, curriculum, the examination system, parents’ views and the evaluation system of the community in general.