Second Information Technology in Education Study 2006
SITES 2006 (2005—2008)
SITES 2006 was an international comparative study of pedagogy and ICT use in schools. The study focused on the role of ICT in teaching and learning in mathematics and science classrooms. It examined the extent to which pedagogical practices considered to be conducive to the development of “21st Century Skills” were present in comparison to traditionally important ones. “21st Century Skills” were defined as the capacity to engage in life long learning (understood as self-directed and collaborative inquiry) and as connectedness (communication and collaboration with experts and peers around the world). SITES 2006 also examined how teachers and students used ICT and whether ICT use contributed differentially to learning activities geared towards the development of 21st century skills. In addition, analyses were conducted to identify conditions at the system, school and teacher levels associated with different pedagogical practices and different ways of ICT use in teaching and learning. The study used questionnaires to gather information from school principals and technology coordinators as well as from mathematics and science teachers. Also policy information on education and ICT use was collected. For countries that participated in SITES Module 1, SITES 2006 provided an opportunity to examine whether there was evidence of changes in pedagogy and ICT use since 1998.
Data collection for SITES 2006 took place in 2005/2006. Eighteen of twenty-to participants collected data on-line.
Target population
SITES 2006 consisted of two survey components: a survey of schools and a survey of mathematics and science teachers of students in their eighth year of schooling.
Participating Educational Systems
The following educational systems participated: Canada (Alberta*, Ontario*), Chile, Chinese Taipei*, Denmark*, Estonia, Finland*, France*, Hong Kong SAR*, Israel*, Italy*, Japan*, Lithuania*, Norway*, Russian Federation*, Russia Moscow Region, Singapore*, Slovak Republic*, Slovenia*, Spain (Catalonia), South Africa *, and Thailand*.
Countries marked with asterisk participated also in SITES-M1.
Key Findings
General findings
- 20 out of 22 participants reported having a system-wide policy on the use of ICT in education, though their policy concerns differed widely. The majority of countries had at least slightly increased ICT spending during the past 5 years and some level of government funding for the provision of hardware and software was reported in nearly all of the systems. With the exception of South Africa, computers are available for teaching and learning purposes in nearly all schools in all participating countries.
- Use of ICT in teaching and learning by mathematics and science teachers remained generally low and highly variable across countries, with reported adoption varying from 20% to 80%. Furthermore, there was no correlation between the level of ICT access (student-computer ratio) and the percentage of teachers reporting having used ICT in their teaching.
- Findings indicate that the extent of ICT use does not only depend on overall national level ICT policies and school level conditions. For example, in Japan and Israel, the percentages of mathematics teachers reporting use of ICT (around 22.5% in both countries) are much lower than those reported by their science teachers from the same samples of schools (44% and 53% respectively). This indicates that national curriculum policies also have a major impact on ICT use in teaching and learning.
21st Century Skills and ICT use
- The impact of ICT use on students was highly dependent on the teaching approaches adopted when ICT is used. Greater student gains in 21st Century Skills were reported by teachers who provided more student-centered guidance and feedback and who engaged more frequently in advising students on group work and inquiry projects.
Trends in ICT provisions and priorities in teaching practice
- Between 1998 and 2006, great improvements in access to computers and the Internet were reported, though considerable diversity in terms of ICT infrastructure available in schools remained. In most of the education systems there was a general increase in teaching practices that involved information handling, which includes searching for information, processing data and presenting information.
- Considerable diversity in developmental trends across countries was observed. In most of the systems there was a general increase in the perceived presence of lifelong-learning pedagogy. Substantial increases were evident in some of the systems that reported the lowest presence in 1998 such as Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. Conversely, a decrease in presence was reported in the three European systems that registered the highest presence in 1998.
Major publications
Law, N., Pelgrum, W.J. & Plomp, T. (eds.) (2008).
Pedagogy and ICT use in schools around the world: Findings from the IEA SITES 2006 study.
Hong Kong: CERC-Springer.
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© 2007 IEA