Entangled in the gender web?: a study of uses and perceptions of the Internet by students at two high schools

Abstract

Although the majority of New Zealand schools are connected to the Internet, there is a lack of research available on how students are actually using the Internet in schools. This study explores, within the context of two co-educational urban secondary schools, senior students' perceptions and uses of the Internet. In particular, the experiences of female students are focused on. An exploratory case study design employing both qualitative and quantitative methods is utilised as a framework for this study. The total cohort of 1999 Form 6 (year 12) and 7 (year 13) students from both schools participated in the study. Although the two schools in the study had quite different characteristics - the patterns of student Internet access were very similar between schools. The majority of students used the Internet both in and outside school for a variety of purposes, the most common being to communicate via e-mail, to complete school work, and to surf for entertainment. Although many female and male students used the Internet for similar activities, the priority given to these activities varied by gender. Females were more likely to be "cyber-nerds" who used the Internet for school work and males were more likely to be "cyber-players" who used the Web for entertainment and gaming. There were some differences between the perceptions of the females and males in this study. As reported internationally, females were more likely to rate themselves as knowing less about the Internet compared with males, even though they had a similar pattern of participation both in terms of access and time. The students in this study were grouped by their types of e-mail communications, and were divided into five categories based on their Internet-usage patterns: nonusers, unconfident grazers, semi-confident multitaskers, confident home gamesters, and hardcore netheads. Unconfident users needed assistance to develop information literacy skills to avoid the "infoglut" present on the Internet. From this research a number of recommendations are suggested to assist schools to cater for these different types of Internet users and to develop gender-equitable policies and programmes.