Home Computer Use Research Articles

HOME COMPUTERS AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES: EVIDENCE FROM THE NLSY97 and CPS*

Although computers are universal in the classroom, nearly 20 million children in the United States do not have computers in their homes. Surprisingly, only a few previous studies explore the role of home computers in the educational process. Home computers might be very useful for completing school assignments, but they might also represent a distraction for teenagers. We use several identification strategies and panel data from the two main U.S. data sets that include recent information on computer ownership among children—the 2000–2003 Current Population Survey (CPS) Computer and Internet Use Supplements matched to the CPS basic monthly files and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97)—to explore the causal relationship between computer ownership and high school graduation and other educational outcomes. Teenagers who have access to home computers are 6–8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than teenagers who do not have home computers after controlling for individual, parental, and family characteristics. We generally find evidence of positive relationships between home computers and educational outcomes using several identification strategies, including controlling for typically unobservable home environment and extracurricular activities in the NLSY97, fixed effects models, instrumental variables, and including future computer ownership and falsification tests. Home computers may increase high school graduation by reducing nonproductive activities, such as truancy and crime, among children in addition to making it easier to complete school assignments (JEL I2).

Does Computer Use Promote the Mathematical Proficiency of Ell Students?

The study explored the effects of computer use on the mathematical performance of students with special attention to ELL students. To achieve a high generalizability of findings, the study used a U.S. nationally representative database, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), and adopted proper weights. The study conducted both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses to examine the direct and longitudinal effects of three types of computer use: home computer access, computer use for various purposes, and computer use for math. The study found positive effects of home computer access and computer use for various purposes for English-speaking groups. It is important to note that computer use for math was associated with a reduced gap in math achievement between native English-speaking and ELL students. In particular, when Hispanic and Asian students frequently used computers for math, they showed high math performances when compared with their English-speaking counterparts.

Socioeconomic differences in elementary students’ ICT beliefs and out-of-school experiences

The purpose of the study was to explore possible links between student socioeconomic status (SES), beliefs about information and communication technologies (ICTs), and out-of-school learning resources. Grades 5 and 6 students ( N = 345) who were enrolled in one private and six public elementary schools in Greece, located in areas with different demographic characteristics, responded to a questionnaire addressing their ICT self-efficacy and value beliefs, out-of-school ICT access and activities, perceived parental support and regulation of home ICT activities, and access to sources of technological support beyond the family. Findings showed that students from all SES family backgrounds tended to have positive views about the value of ICTs, but students from low-SES families expressed lower confidence in their ICT skills. Parents from all SES backgrounds appeared to view equally favorably their children’s engagement with ICTs, and perceived parental support correlated highly with students’ ICT value beliefs. However, students from low-SES families appeared to have fewer opportunities to develop ICT competencies, which may explain why they expressed less positive self-efficacy beliefs. Findings stress the need for school ICT integration efforts to take into account student differences in prior experiences and to be coordinated with students’ home computer use.

A Security Model for an Operating System for Security-Critical Applications in Small Office and Home Environment

Personal computers are often used in small office and home environment for different purposes ranging from general web browsing and e mail processing to processing data that are sensitive regarding their confidentiality and/or integrity. Common operating systems do not provide sufficient protection. We present asecurity model combining the well known benefits of mandatory access control in classified information processing systems with the typical home and small office computer use. We use a simple two-dimensional data classification scheme and present a security model with provable properties that significantly reduces the risks of confidentiality and/or integrity protection violation.

Computer anxiety: A comparison of adolescents with and without a history of specific language impairment (SLI)

Individuals who are anxious about computers may be at a disadvantage in their learning. This investigation focused on the use of home computers for educational purposes. It compared computer anxiety in adolescents with and without a history of special needs related to language difficulties. Participants were 55 17-year-olds with specific language impairment (SLI) and 72 typically developing (TD) peers. Participants completed interviews regarding computer anxiety as well as computer importance and computer enjoyment. Measures of psycholinguistic skills, perceived ease of use and general anxiety were also obtained. Results showed that adolescents with SLI experience more computer anxiety than TD peers and that females are more anxious than males. Level of general anxiety, perceived ease of use and language ability had a direct association and were predictive of level of computer anxiety in adolescents with SLI. In contrast, only perceived ease of use was significantly predictive in TD adolescents. Gender was not a significant predictor in the context of other influential variables. The findings reveal a complex relationship between linguistic, attitudinal and emotional factors and computer anxiety. Adolescents with SLI who are at a greater risk may require multifaceted support for a number of influencing factors including general anxiety.

A Sociotechnological Model for Family Research and Intervention: How Information and Communication Technologies Affect Family Life

The social impact of rapidly evolving information and communication technologies has become the focus of research across many disciplines. Although family scientists recognize the importance of contributing to the discourse, few studies have applied a family theoretical perspective. This article introduces a sociotechnological family conceptual model that organizes existing research and suggests areas for future study and intervention. The model uses an ecological approach and bidirectional conceptualization that acknowledges both the effect of multifunctional technologies, such as cellular phones or personal computers, on and the influence of familial, extrafamilial, and individual characteristics on how those technologies are incorporated within the family context. The Perceived Impact of Home Computer Use on Family Relationships study is used to illustrate how the sociotechnological model advances understanding of the influence information and communication technology has on family life.

The effect of home computer use on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills

In this paper we investigate the effect of using a home computer on children’s development. In most OECD countries 70% or more of the households have a computer at home and children use computers quite extensively, even at very young ages. We use data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), which follows an Australian cohort born in 1999/2000. Skills and computer usage information is collected when children are approximately 5 and 7 years old. For cognitive skills, our results indicate that computer time has a positive effect. For non-cognitive skills the evidence is mixed, the effect depending on the score and the age of the children. We test the robustness of our results by comparing OLS, IV and Value Added estimators. Generally, the IV estimates are larger and the Value Added estimates lower than the OLS ones. However the pattern of the results is quite consistent.

Teenage technological experts’ views of schooling

Utilising Pierre Bourdieu’s formula for studying social practice, this study explored the construction of technological expertise amongst a heterogenous group of New Zealand teenagers. The qualitative study employed observations and interviews with five boys and three girls aged 13–17, who considered themselves to be technological experts; their peers and/or their family also considered them to be technological experts. For seven of the eight participants, their primary site of leisure was their home computer use. This article gives some examples about how the participants’ understand schooling and its relevance to them. It engages with ideas concerning the performance of school, and argues that the participants’ practice in this field of home computer use for leisure tends to be misrecognised. The article concludes by discussing the implications this misrecognition has for the structures of formal schooling.

Cyber-Relations in the Field of Home Computer Use for Leisure: Bourdieu and Teenage Technological Experts

This article highlights the practice of a group of New Zealand teenagers who are considered by their family and themselves to be technological experts. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's key concepts of habitus, field and capital, this text identifies and discusses the cyber-relations that constitute the practice in the field of home computer use for leisure. The purpose of this article is to claim that though this field is predominantly a field of leisure, these are valid sites of informal learning. As almost all of the experts in the study gained their expertise through independent means, with minimal input from their schooling, discussion focuses on what these informal trajectories to technological expertise might mean for pedagogy and formal learning within schools.

Contesting Binaries: Teenage Girls as Technological Experts

Historically, the positioning of technology and expertise has been an antithesis to girls and women. Much literature has focused on understanding and responding to the perceived differences between boys’ and girls’ access to, use of, and understanding of various forms of technology. In a recent qualitative study I conducted, eight teenaged technological experts (three of whom were girls) were observed and interviewed about their use of home computers and understanding of technological expertise. In regard to this heterogeneous New Zealand group, the data suggested that, although the trajectories toward technological expertise were gendered, gender did not limit the teenage girls in their acquisition of expertise. This article explores and challenges dichotomous debates about technology, gender, expertise, and then focuses on the understandings of computers as a subject in schools and as a future career. Through this discussion, the article demonstrates that the participants were aware of the gendered stereotypes surrounding girls and technology, yet dismissed them.

Children and computer use in the home: Workstations, behaviors and parental attitudes

This study examines the home computer use of 26 children (aged 6-18) in ten upper middle class families using direct observation, typing tests, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The goals of the study were to gather information on how children use computers in the home and to understand how both parents and children perceive this computer use. Large variations were seen in computing skills, behaviors, and opinions, as well as equipment and workstation setups. Typing speed averaged over 40 words per minute for children over 13 years old, and less than 10 words per minute for children younger than 10. The results show that for this sample, Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI) concerns ranked very low among parents, whereas security and privacy concerns ranked much higher. Meanwhile, children's behaviors and workstations were observed to place children in awkward working postures. Photos showing common postures are presented. The greatest opportunity to improve children's work postures appears to be in providing properly-sized work surfaces and chairs, as well as education. Possible explanations for the difference between parental perception of computing risks and the physical reality of children's observed ergonomics are discussed and ideas for further research are proposed.

Race, Parental Socioeconomic Status, and Computer Use Time Outside of School Among Young American Children, 1997 to 2003

This article investigates the role that parental socioeconomic status plays in forming the racial gap in home computer use among young school-age children. Descriptive statistics from time diary data of 6- to 11-year-olds in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement, reveal that Black American children spend substantially fewer minutes on the computer than do non-Hispanic White children; however, the racial gap in percentage terms has narrowed between 1997 and 2003. Multivariate analyses indicate that the extent to which parental socioeconomic status explains the racial gap declined between 1997 and 2003—in 2003, less than 10% of the gap is explained by family income and household head's education. The pattern of decline is not observed when analyzing the racial gap in reading time. As home computer ownership approaches saturation, the racial gap in computer use time may increasingly reflect the underlying racial boundaries rather than parental status differentials.

Is students’ computer use at home related to their mathematical performance at school?

Recent research has provided evidence that students’ computer use at home is positively associated with their performance at school. However, most of the previous studies have failed to take into account the multiple determination of school performance and, in addition, to explain why using computers at home should benefit students’ academic achievement. The study described in this article takes a step towards filling this gap by circumventing the theoretical and methodological problems of previous research. First, we analyzed students’ home computer use and their performance in mathematics while accounting for other factors that have been found to affect students’ achievement. Second, we investigated possible differences in students’ school performance depending on how they used the computer. Based on the data from German students who took part in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2003, our results showed that students’ access to a computer was not linked with their performance in mathematics. In addition, it did not matter how often students used a computer at home. A positive effect on mathematical achievement was, however, observed for a small group of students who used the computer in a self-determined way that largely engaged them in problem-solving activities. Overall, the findings indicate that for the majority of students the computer had no substantial influence on their academic achievement. At the same time, the results are suggestive of ways in which performance in mathematics might be enhanced through the use of computers.

Home-PC usage and achievement in English

This article investigates the relation between home computer use and performance in English at school. The sample consists of 656 tenth-class students (age 15–16) in upper-secondary schools in Bergen, Norway. Data collection took place in the spring of 2002 and was administrated by the county education office. After correcting for gender, subject interest, reading disabilities and different PC activity categories, it was still possible to predict performance in English on a significant level from the total time spent in front of the PC-screen. Both boys and girls who seldom used home computers achieved low scores in English. However, of those students who spent two or more hours per day in front of the screen, girls performed very well in English while boys failed to show similar performance gains. Moreover, youths who were classified as poor readers benefited more from using home computers than those who were more competent readers.

Effects of Home and School Computer Use on School Readiness and Cognitive Development Among Head Start Children: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial

Data from 122 Head Start children were analyzed to examine the impact of computer use on school readiness and psychomotor skills. Children in the ex- perimental group were given the opportunity to work on a computer for 15-20 minutes per day with their choice of developmentally appropriate educational software, while the control group received a standard Head Start curriculum. Four standardized tests were administered at baseline and 6 months later to as- sess their school readiness, visual motor skills, gross motor skills, and cognitive development. The experimental group performed significantly better than the control group on the school readiness test. The effect of computer use at school was strongly enhanced by the children's home computer experience. The data were inconclusive regarding the potential effect of computer use on motor skills. These findings underscore the importance of early childhood computer use in the development of minds and bodies of children from socioeconomically dis- advantaged families.

The impact of computer use at home on students’ Internet skills

This article reports on a study into the impact of students’ use of the Internet and the computer at home on digital skills they need for school. The study was conducted in the lower grades of Dutch secondary education (students aged 13–15). More than 2500 students, distributed over 116 classes in 68 schools, participated in the study. Internet and computer skills were measured by means of an objective test. Multilevel analysis was used to examine the impact of home access and use on Internet and computer skills taking into account the effect of students’ backgrounds. Students in pre-university education, third-graders and non-minority students appeared to have better Internet skills and a more advantageous home computer use than students in pre-vocational education, first-graders and minority students, respectively. The Internet skills of girls were hardly less developed than those of boys. Home access to e-mail and the extent to which students use the home computer for surfing, e-mailing, chatting and text processing were found to be substantially related to Internet and computer skills (taking into account the effect of several background characteristics of the students).

Accessibility and Use of Touchscreens by Black and Ethnic Minority Groups in the Three Cities Project

Objectives The public are being encouraged by Government, at a national level, to take a greater role in the management of their health and healthcare but information to support this is not always accessible to black and ethnic minority group members who do not speak or read English. This study looks at the feasibility of providing health-related information in a multilanguage format through a touchscreen kiosk. Design Three touchscreen kiosks were programmed with information on 10 health topics translated into five languages: Chinese, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu and Mirpuri Punjabi. Information was provided orally and in written format. Over an 18-month period the touchscreens were rotated between settings including health centres and libraries, located in deprived areas of Leicester, Sheffield and Nottingham. Information was logged on each individual user with respect to language used, topic selected, age group and gender of user. A number of users were invited to complete a short questionnaire about their use and ease of use of the touchscreen. Results Touchscreens were accessed by 2,456 people across all ages, 53% of whom were male. Urdu and Gujarati were the most frequently accessed languages (37 and 38%, respectively) and Bengali used least (9%). There was some variation in use by setting. Most of the 508 people questioned who had used the touchscreen found it easy to use. Ease of use was related to home computer use and to being younger in age. The five most popular topics accessed by 12% or more users were stress, diabetes, blood pressure, healthy eating and exercise. Topic choice varied by language used by males but not by females. Conclusion Touchscreens providing health information in ethnic minority languages can be successfully accessed by black and ethnic minority groups, particularly those living in deprived areas. Touchscreens proved acceptable to, and were used by, the targeted audience.

The Remote, the Mouse, and the No. 2 Pencil

Media can influence aspects of a child's physical, social, and cognitive development; however, the associations between a child's household media environment, media use, and academic achievement have yet to be determined. To examine relationships among a child's household media environment, media use, and academic achievement. During a single academic year, data were collected through classroom surveys and telephone interviews from an ethnically diverse sample of third grade students and their parents from 6 northern California public elementary schools. The majority of our analyses derive from spring 2000 data, including academic achievement assessed through the mathematics, reading, and language arts sections of the Stanford Achievement Test. We fit linear regression models to determine the associations between variations in household media and performance on the standardized tests, adjusting for demographic and media use variables. The household media environment is significantly associated with students' performance on the standardized tests. It was found that having a bedroom television set was significantly and negatively associated with students' test scores, while home computer access and use were positively associated with the scores. Regression models significantly predicted up to 24% of the variation in the scores. Absence of a bedroom television combined with access to a home computer was consistently associated with the highest standardized test scores. This study adds to the growing literature reporting that having a bedroom television set may be detrimental to young elementary school children. It also suggests that having and using a home computer may be associated with better academic achievement.

Organ Donor Registration Preferences Among Hispanic Populations: Which Modes of Registration Have the Greatest Promise?

There is little debate over Hispanics' need for viable organs. Although organ donor registries can potentially assist in alleviating this need, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has called on researchers to investigate methods to maximize such potential. This research effort answers the aforementioned call by surveying Hispanics, both those who prefer to use Spanish (SP, n=239) and those who prefer not to use Spanish (NSP, n=364) about the methods of donor registration that they would most likely utilize. When provided with different options for organ donor registration, signing up by applying for a driver's license, through a place of worship, or through a doctor's office were among the most popular methods; over the telephone, tax forms, or through the use of home computer were among the least popular. Furthermore, the DHHS-suggested idea of registering via organ donor kiosks was very well received.

The decline in adult book lending in UK public libraries and its possible causes

Possible reasons for the decline in annual adult book issues from UK public libraries are reviewed. Annual book issues have been decreasing since 1980, due mainly to a decrease in issues of adult fiction and, to a lesser extent, adult non‐fiction. Possible intrinsic causes include cuts in book funds in real terms and reduced accessibility of libraries through library closures and reduced opening hours. One likely extrinsic cause is increased real households' disposable income since the late 1970s, which has expanded people's leisure opportunities and made it easy for them to buy books. The widespread use of home computers and the Internet in recent years is also likely to be a factor, but there is little evidence for a major role of increased television watching. There are some data to suggest that the average person in the UK now spends less time reading books and this, combined with the increase in consumer book purchasing, is probably the underlying cause of the decline in public library book lending.