Factors that Affect Usage of Educational Information Technologies by Children and Inequalities related with Such Usage

Abstract

Usage of Information Technologies by children (6–15-year-olds) is increasing day by day. All schools have adopted online education after the breakout of the Covid-19 Pandemic. This new situation is affected by households’ socioeconomic backgrounds. As there are inequalities among households via socioeconomic conditions that lead to education inequalities, the pandemic has exacerbated the existing inequalities related to education. From this point of view, it is crucial to examine the factors that affect the usage of information technologies and the Internet for educational purposes. This paper uses the 2013 Household Information Technologies Usage Survey (HITUS). We estimate the probability of using information technologies and the Internet for education with logistic regression. Age has the highest impact on increasing Internet use for teaching. Being a girl has a negative effect on using the Internet for education. Conversely, being a girl has a positive impact when we use only Internet users as the sample. This means that whenever a girl starts using the Internet, the probability of using it for education is higher for girls than for boys. Educational impact changes based on the sample used. Education increases lead to the rise for all, while it decreases when we use only Internet users. All the regions have a higher probability of using the Internet for education compared to the Southeast. However, regional impacts are changing. Istanbul and the West Black Sea region have the most significant changes in the probability while being in urban areas loses its effect whenever a child starts using the Internet.