Digital divide in schools: Student access to and use of computers

Schools appear to play a vital role in bridging a "digital divide" between rural and urban high school students in terms of access to computers and frequency of their use, according to one of the first research papers done under the new Data Research Centre program.

However, the same is apparently not the case when it comes to two other forms of digital divide: the gap between male and female students, and the gap between students whose parents have low levels of education and those whose parents are highly educated. Female students, in particular, tend to report lower levels of computer skills competency.

The vast majority of urban and rural youth, around 96% in both cases, reported using a computer during the 12 months prior to the 2000 General Social Survey, which collected information on the use of technology. However, the study showed that high school students who live in rural areas are less likely to have a computer in their home than their counterparts in urban areas.

Data from the Youth in Transition Survey showed that only 8% of households with students aged 15 and 16 in cities with a population of 100,000 or more had no computer at home. However, the proportion was twice as high, around 18%, among students in villages with a population of less than 3,000.

In contrast, 29% of students who lived in rural villages reported that they used a computer at school almost everyday, compared with 19% of students in cities. In addition, 8% of rural youth reported almost daily computer use at libraries, compared with 4% of students in cities.

This pattern suggests that rural schools and communities have been able to provide access to computers for students living in rural areas who don't have a computer at home.

According to the GSS, 60% of rural students first learned to use a computer because of the requirements at school, compared with only 45% of urban students. Urban youth were more likely to say they first learned out of personal interest.

Students face some disadvantages in more rural areas

The study used data from the Canadian portion of the Second International Technology in Education Study to measure the use of technological resources in schools.

Overall, based on responses of principals and instructors of computer technology at schools, rural schools appeared to face various disadvantages in comparison to more urban schools. Rural schools were less likely to have well-trained specialists, or teachers free from additional teaching responsibilities, to instruct the students in computer technology.

Rural schools reported less access to educational software, and tended to use fewer types of specialized and subject-specific software than urban schools. They were also less likely to have different types of technical training for computer teachers.

In contrast, there appeared to be more computers per student reported in the more rural schools.

There was also a slight difference in the types of tasks for which rural and urban youths use computers. Although rural and urban youths appeared to engage in similar types of ICT-related activities, more urban youth reported that they had accessed the Internet and used e-mail in the previous year than did their rural counterparts.

Gap in access in terms of sex and socio-economic status

The digital divide between the sexes in accessing computers was slight. GSS data showed that 97% of males and females used a computer in the year prior to the survey. Furthermore, data from the Youth in Transition survey showed that 13% of female youths reported they didn't have a computer at home, compared with 11% among their male counterparts. However, while males and females report relatively similar levels of use, males tend to use computers in more diverse ways, such as programming, using graphics and spreadsheet programs and desktop publishing.

About 57% of male youths said they use their home computers daily, compared with only 45% of female students.

Data revealed that young people whose parents had lower levels of education were less likely to have access to computers in their homes. (For the purpose of this study, socio-economic status was measured by the level of education of a student's parents.) One-third of youth whose parents had little or no formal education reported that they had no computer in their homes, compared with 13% of youths whose parents had completed high school. Only 7% of youths whose parents had post-secondary education said they had no computer at home. Students who reported that they had not used a computer in the 12 months prior to the GSS also tended to come from families in which one or both parents had low levels of education.

Young people whose parents had lower levels of education tended to access school and community computers as much as students whose parents had higher levels of education. This suggests that those from households with lower socio-economic status were not disadvantaged in schools. However, these students do not make up for the lower levels of use at home by using school or community computers more.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey numbers, including related surveys, 4435 and 4505.

The research paper The digital divide in Canadian schools: Factors affecting student access to and use of information technology (81-597-XIE, free) is now available on Statistics Canada's website (http://www.statcan.gc.ca). From the home page, choose Studies by Statistics Canada, then Research opportunities, Research Data Centres and Research papers.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact E. Dianne Looker (902-585-1257), Acadia University, or Victor Thiessen (902-494-6757), Dalhousie University. For more information about the Research Data Centre program, contact Gustave Goldmann (613-951-1472), Statistics Canada.