Gender and socioeconomic related differences in performance based ICT competences

Highlights

• The outline of a simulation and performance-based ICT competence test is presented.

• Relationships between gender, SES and pupils' actual ICT competence are investigated.

• Understandable and socially acceptable digital communication is less developed.

• Girls have better technical ICT skills and higher-order ICT competences than boys.

• SES is positively related to technical ICT skills and higher-order ICT competences.

Abstract

In the past, several studies have investigated the relationship between gender and socioeconomic status on the one hand, and students' ICT competences on the other. In this research field, two problems seem to occur. First, research findings are inconclusive. Second, most studies are conducted from the perspective of self-perceived ICT competence. Such measures suffer from self-reported bias, as they depend on students' own judgment of their ICT competences. This study aims to tackle both these problems. First, the outline of the design of a computer and performance-based assessment test that measures primary school students' ICT competences in a direct and valid way is presented. Second, the relationship between gender and socioeconomic status, and the students' results on the test i.e. their actual ICT competences was investigated. The performance-based test was administered to a representative sample of 378 sixth-grade students of 58 primary schools. The results of this study indicate that primary school students in general have particular difficulties in higher-order ICT competences that focus on communicating in a socially acceptable and clearly understandable way. Moreover, results show that girls have better technical ICT skills and higher-order ICT competences than boys. With regard to socioeconomic status, results show that the educational level of the mother is positively related to both students' technical ICT skills and higher-order ICT competences.

Introduction

The acronym ICT stands for information and communication technology and refers in principle to all possible technologies that are used for locating and processing information, communicating and producing digital media such as computer technology, smartphones, the Internet, multimedia, etcetera (Anderson, 2008; Ito et al., 2008). In this study, ICT is limited to the use of computers and the Internet. Mastery of ICT competences is considered as an essential key competence to function in our present economy and society (Bunz et al., 2007, European Commission, 2007). Computers and the Internet – and especially the ability to operate them – are considered as important in order to develop skills for social interaction, civic participation, information retrieval and processing, and professional success and advancement (Sieverding and Koch, 2009, Zhong, 2011). For these purposes, some national governments have recently designed and administered formal expectations to schools in terms of ICT competence frameworks or standards (Vanderlinde, van Braak, & Hermans, 2009). Consequently, ICT competences can be considered as educational outcomes that students need to acquire. As schools are expected to take the initiative to develop students' ICT competences, a valid assessment of students' ICT competences is necessary.

With regard to the assessment of ICT competences, a distinction can be made between research using self-reported measures (indirect measurement) and research using observation and performance based measures (direct measurement) (Litt, 2013). The literature indicates that the main research interest is directed towards self-reported measures of ICT competences and ICT self-efficacy (van Deursen and van Dijk, 2011, Hargittai, 2005, Meelissen, 2008) as such measures easily permit the collection and analysis of data from big samples. In this context, several self-report instruments have been developed and used to measure certain aspects of students' ICT competences or students' ICT competences in general, such as the general internet self-efficacy scale (GISE) and the communicative internet self-efficacy scale (CISE) of Liang and Tsai (2008), or the online exploration and online communication scale of Tsai and Tsai (2010). Torkzadeh and Van Dyke (2002) have operationalized Internet self-efficacy as students' confidence in browsing, system manipulation and encryption/decryption. Bunz' (2004) Computer-Email-Web fluency scale measures students' self-perceived ability in general computer use, e-mail use, Web navigation and Web editing. Although these measures are useful for investigating students' self-perceived abilities within large samples, they are less appropriate for measuring students' actual ICT competences. It is well-known that ability measures that are based on students' own judgment cope with validity-problems of self-reported bias (Ballantine et al., 2007, Bunz et al., 2007, van Deursen and van Dijk, 2011, Hakkarainen et al., 2000). Students can over and underestimate their own ICT competences (Merritt, Smith, & Di Renzo, 2005). As such, self-perceived or self-reported measures are not always a valid representation of their actual ability to use ICT.

Some researchers have tried to tackle these shortcomings of self-reported measurements by assessing students' ICT competences in a more direct way, i.e., through observation and performance based ICT competence studies. In general, such studies involve students performing actions on a computer while being observed and evaluated by the researcher (Litt, 2013). Performance-based assessment tasks are valuable because they guarantee direct and authentic appraisals of complex competences (Messick, 1994). As such, it can be expected that performance-based tests using authentic tasks are more valid for measuring the complexity of students' ICT competences. Although these observations and performance-based measures have higher validity, they are also time consuming, expensive, more difficult to replicate and more difficult to conduct on large samples. In order to cope with some of these limitations, international large-scale assessment initiatives have recently been set up to measure students' ICT competences in a direct and standardized way using computer based software, such as ICILS or iSkills (Fraillon and Ainley, 2010, Katz, 2007). Although these studies have great scientific value, they do not address the ICT competences of primary school students.

The general purpose of this study is twofold: 1) First, we wish to tackle the problem of indirect assessment by outlining the design of a computer-based assessment test that can be used to measure primary school students' ICT competences in a direct and valid way; 2) Second, we wish to investigate primary school students' ICT competences by describing their performance on the developed test. For this, special attention will be paid to the relationship between gender and socioeconomic status on the one hand, and students' ICT competences on the other. We consider this essential, as previous research states that both of these variables are important correlates (Bunz et al., 2007, Claro et al., 2012, Volman et al., 2005), but offers inconclusive results on the matter. Moreover, most studies that investigate the relationship with gender and SES are conducted from the perspective of self-assessment rather than focusing on actual, valid measures of ICT competence.