Contact: Toni Downes 7729200(ph), 7721565 (fax) t.downes@uws.edu.au (email)

1. Summary

The results of this part of the study clearly indicate that there are a number of children in today’s primary classrooms who are confident, competent and regular users of computers in their homes. The purpose of this study was to describe the computer experiences these children have within their homes and to explore patterns of similarities and differences in terms of the child’s age and gender, and the characteristics of the family and community from which the children come. It is not the purpose of this study to estimate what proportion of the primary school population belong to this group.

These children use computers for a variety of purposes and are comfortable moving between playing games and doing work on the computer. While game playing remains the more common activity, many of these children regularly write and draw and use information-based programs for leisure as well as school-related work. Boys and girls reported the same frequency of game playing on the computer, but boys were more likely to own and operate a dedicated video-game machine in the home as well as the computer. Girls were more likely to report that they wrote stories (narratives) for leisure on the computer, while younger boys and children without printers were more likely not to write stories.

Many of the children in the study have one or both parents using computers as part of their paid employment. There was a strong link between parental use of computers at work and the school/community to which the child belonged. Children who had one or more parents using computers in their work place tended to have more computers, printers, CD Rom drives and modems in their homes, however the uses the children made of the equipment varied little from those children whose parents did not use the computer in their work place.

Generally the children came from homes where other family members also use the computer/s for a variety work-related and leisure activities. In many families the fathers were the predominant individual "owner", the main teachers in the early stages of the children’s learning about computers, the primary source of technical help when the computer needs ‘fixing’ and often the key decision maker about purchasing new software. In these families, the children still saw themselves and their siblings as the predominant users of the computers, along with their father. As well, other family members also played an active part as role models in using the computer, with mothers often helping with computer-based homework and supervision of computer use. Siblings too played important roles, as models, helpers and game-playing partners. In many other families the computer belonged to "the family" and the children had a strong sense of "ownership" of the computer, saw themselves and their siblings as the primary users of the computers and played an active role in making decisions about software purchases.

When there is competition for access to the computer, older members have priority over younger members and those doing work have priority over those playing games. As well families have explicit rules about community and personal use and care of the computer. Younger children are more likely to have rules about how to care for the computing equipment, while older children are more likely to have rules which govern the frequency and duration of computer use.

The latest technology to enter the home, the modem, is still relatively scarce in these children’s homes. Where a family owns a modem, it is mainly for work-related purposes of the father. Fathers and older brothers are the users of this new technology. Only a few of the children used the modem themselves to connect to the Internet or other telecommunications activities. Those who did were invariably male.

2. Background

In 1995, Stage One of a study into Children’s Use of Electronic Technologies in the Home was completed. In this stage researchers held discussions with 190 children from three schools in south western Sydney. These children ranged in age from five to twelve years of age. They were selected on the basis that their parents had reported them as regular users of computers in their homes. Regular users were defined as children who used a computer at least two or three times a week for games and or other purposes. In these discussions the children described the physical and social environments within which they used the computers. Topics ranged from who owned the computer/s, where it was located, who used it most, how the children used it, what rules surrounded the use of the computer, how the children learnt to use the computer and the children’s perceptions about the differences between home and school computing. The results have been published in a report.

3. Purpose

Stage Two of the study was designed to seek clarification of many of the issues raised in the first stage of the research. In particular, an attempt was made to see what similarities and differences existed across children who regularly used computers at home, and across their families and communities. The following characteristics were identified as key factors that might be associated with differences.

children : gender and age

families: parental computing experiences, number of computers in the home

communities: socio-economic and cultural factors, school experiences

The study was designed to investigate these differences in terms of children’s perceptions of their access to and use of computers. Key topics explored include children’s ways of using the computer, ways of learning to use the computer, who they perceive ‘owns’ the computer, who uses it most and who helps them, what they see other members of the family doing with the computer, what rules exist in the family to regulate computer use, what they learn from playing games and using computers, and differences in home and school use.

4. Design and Procedures

Two hundred and seventy five children were interviewed by researchers. Children were selected from eleven primary school communities in urban Sydney. The school communities represented a wide range of social, economic, cultural and language backgrounds. One of the schools selected was a single sex school (School 1) and another had single sex classes in the higher grades (school 5). These schools were matched with partner schools, on the basis of same type of community and school. Thus the data analysis refers to nine school communities.

In each school (or partner school) plans were made to interview four boys and four girls in each of the upper four grades (Yrs 3-6). Children from the lower grades (K-Yr2) were not included in this stage of the study, because in the discussions during Stage One some of these children were not able to fully describe or explain their home environment and others provided inconsistent or conflicting responses.

As in Stage One of the study children were selected on the basis of information provided by their parents. All parents in the upper grades of each school received a letter of introduction and a permission note. These documents were translated into fourteen languages that were spoken by families across the nine school communities. Rate of return of permission notes varied across the grades and schools but each school had sufficient returns to allow four boys and girls to be selected for the interviews. Children were selected on the basis that the parent/s reported that their child used the computer two or three times a week for a variety of purposes. These included games, school work, writing, drawing and other computing activities. In some cases absences and school events prevented all selected children from being interviewed. A difficulty did arise with Year 4 girls in School 3 but this was compensated for by interviewing more girls in the same grade in School 4. Schools 3 and 4 were similar in geographical location, socio-economic status, cultural and language backgrounds. Table 1 indicates the breakdown of the gender, grade and school (and partner school) of students who were interviewed.

Table 1

Numbers of children interviewed

Grades	3		4		5		6		Total
Gender	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F
Schools
1	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	32
2	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	32
3	3	3	3	1	4	4	4	4	26
4	4	4	3	6	3	4	1	3	28
5	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	32
6	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	32
7	2	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	30
8	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	31
9	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	32
Total	33	35	34	35	35	36	32	35

 

The interviews lasted between twenty and thirty minutes. They were structured, using a set schedule. Appendix A contains a copy of the interview schedule. During the interviews researchers recorded responses on a form. All interviews were taped, to allow for checking the accuracy and completeness of the information recorded on the form. The interview schedules were based on issues that were identified in Stage One of the study. They were trialed in one of the schools engaged in the earlier stage.

5. Results
1. Communities

The communities of each of the nine schools varied in socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Two school communities could be described as wealthy predominantly anglo communities (1,9); two school communities as middle class communities- one multicultural (2), the other predominantly anglo (6); three as multicultural middle class/working class communities (3, 4 and 5) and two multicultural communities in south western Sydney drawing a large proportion of their families from public housing estates (7,8).

Each community also differed in terms of the computing environments within the schools. Types and numbers of computers varied across the schools, as did their configuration. Three schools had computer rooms or laboratories and the rest had computers in classrooms, laptop computers or a combination of the above. In all schools the primary focus of computing was across curriculum use, however two of the schools supplemented this with well-defined systematic instruction in computer use. Almost 50% of the children reported they used the computers at school about once a week, while 30 % reported less than once a week and only 20% more than once a week. Table 2 presents a breakdown of children’s perceptions of frequency by school attended.

Table 2

Children’s perceptions of frequency of use of computers at school

	Less than once a week	About once a week	More than once a week
School
1	9%	69%	22%
2	44%	47%	9%
3	43%	35%	22%
4	0%	86%	14%
5	53%	25%	22%
6	44%	22%	34%
7	0%	73%	27%
8	55%	35%	10%
9	44%	31%	25%
ALL	33%	47%	21%

 

Interestingly even children within the same grade reported different perceptions about frequency of use. Overall the children in the older grades reported more frequent use than those in younger grades. As well there was some variation across the schools in the children’s perceptions. Differences in frequency of use did not relate to the number of computers in the school nor the socio-economic or cultural background of the communities. However, there was a direct relationship with children’s perceptions of frequency of use and how the computers were organised in the school. In the three schools that had computer laboratories and timetabled classes over 69% of children reported that they used the computer at least once a week.

2. Family members

The age and gender of the children interviewed is presented in Table 1 above. 142 girls and 134 boys were interviewed. About 90% of the children came from two-parent families with about a third of the children being the oldest in their family. There were equal numbers of families with sisters and brothers. Almost half of the children came from families where the oldest child was still in primary school, a third where the oldest was of secondary school age and the remainder where the oldest was post-school age.

3. Family use of computers

The children were asked to comment on their family’s use of the computer in their home. About 75% of the children reported that their father used the computer/s in the home, about 65% that their mothers used the computer/s and about 84% that their brothers and/or sisters used them. In general children saw other family members using the computers for a variety of tasks. In the case of parents, children reported that they bring work home or work from home, do family work or voluntary work for local organisations, and use the computer for leisure. While these patterns hold for both mothers and fathers, children reported that their fathers are more likely to do employment-related work on the computer and mothers more likely to do home-related work and work for voluntary organisations.

When reporting their siblings use of computers, the range of tasks covered school work, writing and games, with games being the predominant activities for brothers and the combination of school work and games for sisters.

There were differences related to community for numbers of children reporting parental use but not sibling use. The differences though marked were not fully consistent with the socio-economic / cultural differences in the school communities. For example fathers of children from schools 3, 4, 5 and 7 were less likely to use the home computer/s than their counterparts, and mothers of children from schools 1, 2 and 6 were more likely to use the home computer/s than their counterparts.

About 60% of the children reported that the children in the family used the computers most, 23% the parents (predominantly the father) and 14% the whole family. About 25% of the children believed that the whole family "owned" the computer/s, about 25% that the father "owned" it/them and the remainder a combination of family members. Where the family owned two or more computers, usually the whole family or the children "owned" one computer and an individual "owned" the other/s.

4. Parental use of computers in the workplace

The children reported whether their mother, father or any other adult in the home used a computer at work. Few children had other adults in the home. 60% of the children reported that one or both of their parents used a computer in their workplace. Less than 10% of the children responded that they did not know. About 14% of the children reported that their mother did not go to work and about 8% that their fathers did not go to work or did not live at home. Table 3 presents a breakdown of the number of children with one or both parents using a computer in the workplace.

Table 3

Percentage of children with one or both parents using computers in the workplace

(by school)

	Neither Parent	Father only	Mother only	Both Parents
Schools
1	13%	29%	19%	39%
2	9%	28%	31%	31%
3	81%	8%	12%	0%
4	57%	14%	11%	18%
5	53%	22%	13%	13%
6	16%	47%	13%	25%
7	53%	23%	23%	0%
8	61%	19%	13%	6%
9	9%	47%	25%	19%
ALL	38%	27%	18%	17%

 

The differences between mothers and fathers using a computer at work are not as great as they seem. When children who have both parents using computers at work are taken into account, 34% of the children report that they have mothers who use a computer at work and 44% have fathers that do.

Large differences do exist, however, across school communities in terms of the percentages of children who report that one or both parents use a computer at work. These percentages vary from about 20% at School 3, through to about 90% at schools 2 and 9. In this instance there does appear to be a consistency with socio-economic and cultural backgrounds of the school communities with the wealthier school communities (1, 2, 6 and 9) having higher proportions of one or both parents using computers at work and the less wealthy school communities (3, 4, 5, 7 and 8) having relatively fewer parents using computers at work.

5. Computing equipment in the home

Two hundred and sixty six children had computers in their homes. Nine children without computers in their home had regular (several times a week) access to computers in the homes of members of their extended families or neighbours. Of the children who had computers in their homes, about 30 % had two or more working (not broken) computers, about 80% had a printer, about 50% a CD Rom drive and 20% a modem. In general the children used all of this equipment, except in the case of the modem, where less than half of the children who had a modem in their home, actually used it. Invariably these were boys.

While there were no age and gender differences in the children’s perceptions of what equipment they had in their homes, there were differences between children who had one or more parent using a computer at work and children who had neither parent using a computer at work. Children who had one or more parent using a computer in their work were twice as likely to have two or more computers in their home, and more than twice as likely to have printers and CD Rom drives. Furthermore, these children’s families owned all but 8 of the 52 modems! As noted above, parental use of computers at work is also linked to socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Within the scope of this study it is not possible to further clarify the relationship between the amount of equipment in the home, parental use of computers at work and the socio-economic and cultural backgrounds of the families. Therefore in the following analyses the age and gender of the child and parental use at work will be the key factors when exploring systematic differences between children’s reported beliefs and perceptions.

6. Software in the home

The children spoke about how often their families purchase software and who makes the decisions about software purchases. 27% of the children reported that their family did not buy software, 26% reported that they purchased software about once a year, 23% several times a year, 17% every 2 - 6 weeks and 7% on special occasions such as sales, birthdays or when they needed a piece of software for a particular purpose. The children who reported that their families didn’t purchase any software offered a number of reasons. Some expressed the view that their family was content with the software they already owned or which had come with the computer. In some cases the computer has just recently been purchased. Some explained that they borrowed any software that they wanted. A couple of children described difficulty in obtaining suitable software. Comments included:

"can't buy any right now because all the programs are for 486's" (Year 5 boy)

"we have a Commodore and an Amiga, we can't find any games any more" (Year 6 boy)

Reasons given for the purchase of new software included: they wanted more games; bored with current programs; someone they know has it and it looks good; for school work; to get information for school; on special; advertised; as a gift or present; and needed for their parent's work. The children were asked to name the last piece of software that their family purchased. 28% children named a piece of educational software which had recently been purchased by the family. Educational programs, including encyclopaedias and children’s word processors, were mentioned as often as recreational games. Examples of educational software popular with the children and their families were: Sim City, Dangerous Creatures, Encarta, Fine Artist, Myst, children's word processors such as Creative Writer, My Own Stories and the Writing Centre.

There were no systematic differences in the frequency of purchasing or in what was purchased based on the age and gender of the respondents. This is not surprising as, about 50% of the children who reported that their families purchased software described their father as the main decision maker. In many of these cases children were also involved in the decision making process, but nowhere to the extent of their parent. Consistent with this fact that parents (particularly fathers) were involved in the decision making process, children from families where one or both parents used computers at work were more likely to regularly buy new software for the home.

7. Children’s talk about computers and computing

When children were asked to describe the computer equipment in their home, there was a wide variety of responses. This is consistent with Stage One of the study. In particular the age differences in approaches to describing the computer was still evident although in Stage Two, the children’s ages only ranged from eight to twelve years old. As expected younger children gave shorter and simpler answers and older children more elaborate ones involving more technical terms. Younger children were also more likely to describe the computer in terms of its looks and the software on it, while older children described the capabilities of the machine and the purposes for which it is used. Girls were less likely to describe the computer in terms of its technical capabilities. There were no family- or community-related differences in the descriptions. Some examples of comments from these children are:

"my computer at home is big and heavy and a bit grey" (Year 3 boy);

" its a (Brand), its very easy to use, its has lots of things that came with it, it runs most games, and has a lot of megabytes" (Year 4 girl);

"(brand), 486, 33 Mhz, 16 bit sound card and superVGA colour monitor" (Year 6 boy); and

"an old (brand) model, no Windows, but has DOS, its useful. It has Word Perfect, drawing program, new Print Shop and games" (Year 6 girl).

In all 29 children described the capacity of their computer using a string of technical terms. 20 of these children were boys, 17 of which were in Years 5 & 6. Many children were comfortable with a range of technical terms. These included: icon, options, applications, accessories, megabytes, soundblaster, hard drive, disk drive, joystick, memory, RAM, files, file manager, control panels, finder, password, modem, Internet, graphics, arrow keys, and disks.

The more common vocabulary that was used included: mouse, keyboard, CD Rom, click on it, enter, play, windows, DOS, load, wait, programs, games, buttons, power switch/button, menu, monitor, and compatible. The importance to the children of having a mouse became evident during the descriptions with over two-thirds of the children mentioning that their computer had a mouse. CD Rom drives were also mentioned frequently by the children who had them.

When asked how they operated their computer most children chose to describe their computer's start up operation. Examples included:

"have to turn the monitor on and the other switch on, type WIN and just wait. Then it has a picture, press enter, it has all the programs and click it twice with the mouse to choose" (Year 3 girl);

"turn it on, get into it, press a button and use it" (Year 4 girl); and

"it loads and goes to Windows. Click on the icon for CD roms and a list comes up with all the CDs. To play games in DOS, you leave Windows, put in CD\(backslash) and the name of the game and it comes up" (Year 6 boy).

The students described how they were able to "get into" games or programs on their particular machine Descriptions included:

"use the keyboard. Press pink button, wait. Then go to the game. Then press enter. Then get the password to get into the games" (Year 3 girl);

"put on the switch. At the C prompt, type in WIN. Put the CD in the CD Rom for a game. Type in the name or go to directory, then it will tell me what to type in" (Year 6 boy); and

"turn on the disk drives and the monitor. It goes to Windows straight away. Press start and programs are stored under certain names. Go from file to file to find what I want" (Year 6 girl).

While age and gender were related to obvious differences in the way the children spoke about the computer, the differences related to families and communities were more subtle.

The children were also asked to report whether they spoke about computers and computing with family and friends. Over two thirds of the children reported that engaged in or heard frequent talk about computers. Of these children 36% spoke with their family, 42% with their friends and 22% with both family and friends. There were some age and gender differences in that the older boys were more likely to talk about computers than the girls or younger boys. Children who come from families with one or more parents who use computers at work, and children who come from particular school communities (3, 4 & 6) are also more likely to report that they talk with others about computers and computing. The former related to talk within the family and the latter to talk with friends. Both sets of differences, however, were quite small.

The children reported that they spoke about the kind of computer and software they had, new games and programs, what they had recently done on the computer, when their computer wasn’t working, when they were able to use it, and about stories they were writing on the computer.

8. Ways of using the computer

During the interview children were asked questions about what they used the computer for. In particular they were asked questions about writing, drawing, doing projects and other homework. Each of these topics is discussed in turn below.

1. Writing

Over 90% of the children used the computer for writing. Those that didn’t were more likely to be boys in the younger grades or children without printers. About 66% of the children write on the computer both for school-related tasks as well as recreational or non-school tasks. Many of the children reported that they used the computer to write for a variety of purposes and audiences. These included stories, letters, party invitations, signs, poems, songs, cards, jokes, memos/messages, lists, captions, diaries/ journals and recipes. A small number of children reported that they copied texts from books. Only one child mentioned the word Internet within the context of writing letters to friends although in another part of the interview two children spoke of ‘talking’ to friends using the modem (which requires writing). The only systematic difference found was related to gender and writing stories, with girls being the predominant story writers.

Some children write straight on the computer and others write on paper first and some children do both, depending on the task. There appears to be a school / home difference in the minds of some of the children:

"Depends if it's for fun I write straight on the computer. If it's for school then I want it to be perfect, so I write on paper first. (Year 4 girl).

Some children prefer the computer because of the ease of editing:

"it's not much use doing a draft because you can delete it if you do a mistake" (Year 6 boy);

"straight on the computer, it's much more fun, you can rub it out again" (Year 4 girl); and

"ideas come quicker on the computer" (Year 5 girl).

There were no systematic differences in approaches to writing based on age, gender, family or community factors.

The children were also asked to describe the last piece of writing they had done on the computer. Children varied in how they responded to this question. Some described what they wrote, others retold the processes they used and some a mixture of both. Some comments were:

"about a bush walk. wrote straight on the computer, did title page, headings and pictures by hand" (Year 4 boy);

"just thought it up, typed it in, used MSWord, used spellcheck, did heading and underlined it, saved on disk, and printed it at uncle’s place" (Year 3 boy); and

"invitation for sleepover, also a fiction story about a monster typed onto the computer, did heading and used different fonts (Year 4 girl).

Twenty four children used the term "word processing" in relation to their writing activities and one hundred and sixty children could name at least one piece of writing software.

2. Drawing

Over 85% of the children indicated that they used the computer for drawing or working with graphics. There were no differences across age, gender, family or community. The activities included: experimenting/ playing within painting and drawing programs; making cards, banners, signs, posters and invitations; drawing pictures or using ready made graphics to illustrate stories, assignments or projects and designing things such as flags, dresses, houses and cities. Several children commented that they did not ever save or print out their work; some mentioned ‘cutting’ and ‘pasting’ their pictures into their writing document:

"I use Paintbrush to practise drawing. Don’t print it because we have no colour printer. Use the rubber to take it off the screen" (Year 4 boy).

3. Homework

65% of the children interviewed described their home computer as a useful tool for doing homework. The school work they referred to included projects, assignments, essays, book reviews, research, making notes, answering questions, getting pictures, using the calculator for maths, practising times tables, making newspapers, finding the meanings of words, poetry, writing, spelling lists and speeches. Older students (Yrs 5 &6) were more likely to report that they use the computer for homework, with 86% of Year 6 children saying that they do some kind of homework on the computer.

For the majority of students doing projects still involved moving between the screen and paper. Some children used screen and paper-based sources of information, others printed out the information from the screen, worked on it on paper, then typed the final version back into the computer. A small number of children worked within the screen environment until the final stages then wrote the final copy by hand. Most of these children did not have access to printers in their home. Some illustrative comments were:

"print the information off Encarta. Underline the bits which are important and type them up" (Year 4 girl);

"...used Groliers to get the information, and used encyclopedia (books) for information. Printed the information from Groliers and changed it into my own words. Typed it back again. Printed pictures and did a title page."(Year 5 boy);

"project on gold. Click on encyclopaedia. Choose topic. Print information out. Do draft. Start to type it back in. Change font for headings and writing. Use underline and borders" (Year 6 girl); and

"on Humpback whales - went into Encarta and typed in whales and it took you to all the whales. Looked up humpback whales gave me all the info, printed it and wrote it out by hand." (Year 3 boy).

When obtaining information from CD Rom encyclopaedias, many students were able to use their reading, summarising and editing skills. Many read through the information and selected information to put into their own words and re-typed it back into the computer. Some students were able to do this within a fully screen-based process:

"go to the encyclopaedia, cut information from the encyclopaedia and paste it into (word processor). I change, add, delete and try to put it in my own words" (Year 6 boy).

Some children showed a lack of understanding of copyright and plagiarism as they literally pasted the print straight into their book or project or directly copied paper-based text into the computer. Two such children explained how they:

"printed out the information. Read it. Cut it up with scissors because some of the information is too hard to understand. Pasted it onto cardboard" (Year 4 boy); and

"went to the library - got book and photocopied it and just typed in up on the computer (Year 3 girl).

Another interesting feature of the children’s comments about their school- related home computing was the number of children who mentioned the help they received with their work. Parents helped their children with many aspects of the work. They helped the children print out their work, in some cases type it in, check their work and help them put the text into their own words. Both mothers and fathers received equal mentions for giving this type of assistance.

4. Games

The children reported that game playing was their predominant activity on the computer, with about 90% of the children reporting that they played games once a week or more often. No gender and age differences were found in children’s reporting of the frequency with which they play games on the computer. Table 4 presents a breakdown of frequency of game playing by gender. There is a difference, however, in the number of boys who reported that they also own and used a dedicated games machine in the home . 78% of the boys reported that they had a games machine in the home which they used, this compared to 55% of the girls. It is also interesting to note that 23% of the boys reported that they used the games machine more often than the computer, compared to 10% of the girls. There are also some age differences in terms of younger girls being the group less likely to use dedicated games machines at all.

Table 4

Frequency of Game Playing on the computer

	Never	Hardly ever	Less than once a week	About once a week	Two or three times a week	At least once a day	Several hours a day
Gender
Girls	3%	1%	8%	28%	31%	23%	6%
Boys	-	1%	10%	24%	39%	22%	5%
All	1.5%	1%	9%	26%	35%	22.5%	5%

In terms of frequency of use of game playing on the computer, there are some differences in frequency of use based on school community. Children from schools 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 were more likely to report a higher frequency of game playing on the computer. Again, these differences are not completely consistent with the socio-economic and cultural backgrounds of the communities and they are compounded by the fact that the biggest differences in frequencies are from girls in these schools where more that 30% of them report playing at least once a day compared to their counterparts where 18% or less report doing so.

9. Ways of learning to use the computer

The first things that children say they learn to do on the computer are to turn it on and off, to save files, play games, use word processing or typing, use Windows, move the mouse and click on things, operate the keyboard, and use the disks. Children’s comments included:

"double click the mouse to get into things" (Year 5 girl)

"how to get into games and then click on a thing and it had another thing I could do like writing and drawing and I went on from there" (Year 5 boy)

"then dad taught me how to use the directories" (Year 6 boy)

According to most children (75%) they learn to use the computer by having another person show or teach them what to do. The tutor is usually a family member. Fathers were named as the tutor twice as often as mothers, and brothers were named as the tutor twice as often as sisters. An additional 12% of students said that they learned by watching someone else use the computer, which is an indirect and more passive way of learning. The remainder of learners were taught by school teachers and extended family members such as uncles, aunts and cousins. Only 10% said that they taught themselves or read the computer manual.

Following the initial teaching period the learning is gradually handed over to the child. When children get encounter difficulties with something on the computer they were asked whose assistance they sought and why the person named is their helper. Most children selected a family member on the basis of their knowledge of computers:

"my sister- because she knows more about computers than dad" (Year 4 girl)

"my brother- he is the smartest one on computers" (Year 5 boy)

"dad's friend is the most computer literate person I know" (Year 6 boy)

If something goes wrong with the computer when it is being used, children were asked if they thought they could fix it themselves. 41% of the children said "no", 28% said "sometimes, depends or mostly" and 28% said "yes". Older children were slightly more likely to have a positive response. However, children who had one or more parents using a computer at their work were almost twice as likely to have a positive response to the question. Interestingly gender had no relationship with the children’s responses yet fathers were, overwhelmingly the first person to be called for help, if the child could not fix it. Uncles were also frequently called up if dad could not help. Mothers and sisters were only mentioned by 10 children as a person to be called when things went wrong. Some typical comments of the children were:

"depends - if a big mistake ask my dad but usually fix it myself" (Year 3 girl);

"My dad calls my uncle, and my uncle, my dad and me and my friend fix/do it together" (Year 3 boy);

"No - my mum can fix it up, once she got a disk wiped off and she got it back on" (Year 4 boy);

"Yes - just try things until they work"(Year 5 girl); and

"depends - if a minor problem I can, if its a disk I can delete things, but if its a big malfunction I call dad" (Year 6 boy).

10. Family rules to manage computer use

All children spoke at length about the family rules regarding computer use. As with the discussions in Stage One of the study there were many purposes for the rules. Rules could be either explicit - a clearly stated rule, or implicit- inferred from particular behaviour or decisions parents made. The rules tended to fall into three categories: rules regarding the management of a community-owned item; rules regarding the child’s use of the computer; and rules regarding the care and operation of the computer.

The first group of rules, the community rules, included rules for managing the processes for shared use of the computer and its resources, resolving conflicts and defining acceptable behaviour. The most commonly reported rule related to ‘taking turns’. In general older family members have priority over younger ones, and people needing to do work have priority over those who want to play games. Some examples of children’s comments are:

"share it and don’t fight over it; mum or dad decides who will get it" (Year 6 girl);

"if sister has work to do she uses it but if she wants to play games and I am on it then its tough for her" (Year 6 boy);

"cant distract anyone while they are using it." (Year 4 boy);

"not allowed to use CDs that are for dad’s work; not allowed to scrap someone’s saved files;" (Year 5 girl); and

"don’t put music up too loud" (Year 5 girl).

The second groups of rules, the personal rules set conditions and limits on the children’s use. These include when and how and for what the children could use it, when supervision or permission is needed, and codes of behaviour when using the computer. Many children reported that they need to complete homework (on or off the computer) before they can play games and they have overall limits on the amount of time they can play games. Their comments about personal rules included:

‘no rude pictures; no rude words on the program where you type something and it talks" (Year 5 girl);

"If I have homework I have to finish it and then I can play games on it" (Year 5 boy);

"only once a week, if a play it too much mum will take out the mouse and hide it." (Year 6 boy);

"not allowed to use the Internet unsupervised. No shooting games." (Year 4 girl);

"one hour a night for school nights, anytime on weekends, take a rest after two hours on weekends and must ask to use the modem." (Year 6 boy); and

"If I’ve been in trouble at school then I’m not allowed to use it for a couple of weeks." (Year 5 boy).

The third set of rules involve care and use of the computer:

"Don’t eat near it: wash hands; don’t touch the screen, be careful with it, don’t play around with the mouse." (Year 4 girl);

"don’t hit the keyboard hard, don’t be rough with the mouse." (Year 4 boy);

"don’t turn it off automatically because you wreck it, close Windows 95" (Year 3 girl);

Within this category there are also rules about use of printers. Many of the younger children reported that they cannot use the printer without supervision / permission. Some children also reported that there were limitations on how much they can print or how much colour they can use. One child reported similar limitations on Internet use. Typical comments were:

"can’t print too much" (Year 3 girl);

"don’t use too much colour on the printer" (Year 4 girl); and

"on the Internet, only allowed 30 minutes to 1 hour. When time runs out you have to turn it off. For other things, can use as long as I want." (Year 6 boy).

In all 23 children reported that there were no rules in their homes. However, half of these qualified their statements. Many of these statements indicated the presence of implicit rules. An example of such a comment is:

"no rules - mum makes us play together if we both want to use it" (Year 4 girl).

Few systematic differences in reported rules existed across the key factors. Younger children were more likely to report explicit rules about caring for the computer and its equipment and the need for supervision/ permission. Older children were more likely to report explicit and implicit rules that related to how often, how long and when (i.e. after homework) they could use the computer. Interestingly children who had one or more parents using a computer at work were less likely than their counterparts to report the latter types of rules.

11. Learning from playing games and using computers

The children were asked to comment on what they learnt from playing games and from using the computer. Most children believed that there were benefits from using both games and the computer more generally. Children provided a range of responses to the question about games. 30% of the children responded that they learned nothing from games, they played them for fun. Others reported that they learned a number of skills, strategies specifically related to that game, to game playing in general or they developed general computing skills and knowledge. More interestingly some children reported that they learnt a range of ‘real world’ skills from the simulated environments within the games. Examples of these included physical skills such as driving cars, skiing, playing golf, playing soccer, controlling aircraft, shooting missiles, how to use guns, and other more strategic skills such as handling money, building cities and playing real card games. A small number of children reported that they learnt how to solve problems, develop thinking skills, have patience and develop perseverance, memory and imagination. Some of the children’s comments were:

"how to use computers" (Year 3 boy);

"to do some things sometimes to kill the baddies." (Year 3 girl);

"that if you practise it will get easier" (Year 4 boy);

"with driving games, if you have good graphics it can show you how to drive a car"(Year 4 boy);

"I haven’t learnt much from playing games but there are some games that you can learn from - (child names a desktop publishing package)" (Year 5 girl); and

"how to play better and compete against sister and mum in games" (Year 6 girl).

Not surprisingly the children made similar types of comments about what they learnt from using computers. They commented on learning software specific skills and general computer skills. Others generalised to learning about new technology - how to understand it more, learning that computers are a useful thing. A number of children mentioned the future, or skills for when they’re older. Many children mentioned "how to get information" and gave examples of the topics /areas that they had learned about. These included countries, wars, animals, machines and famous people. More often than not these comments included references to CD Rom-based encyclopedia or factual texts. As well, a large number of children referred to school subjects such as maths, reading, writing, spelling, sentence construction, history, geography, science or the general description "how to do school work". 74% of children said that owning a home computer gave them an advantage at school:

" computers help us to learn a lot more to work together, to find out information, and they are lots of fun. If you think computers are boring, they are not. You are always learning new things. (Year 6 girl).

12. Differences in home and school use

70% of the children preferred to use a computer in the home environment rather than the school environment. 14% of the children enjoyed using a computer in either environment and did not want to select a preference:

"It doesn't matter where you use a computer" (Year 6 girl); and

"There are lots of different games to choose from at home and at school" (Year 3 girl).

The type of computer hardware and software available in the home and school environments was the main reason given by children for their preference. Frustration was caused by the limitations of some computing equipment:

"My computer stops in the middle of a game. School has a better computer, it works properly" (Year 4 girl);

"At home our computer is old, it's just about had it" (Year 5 boy);

"School has things that I don't have at home, like a CD Rom" (Year 4 girl);

"At school the printer sometimes doesn't work, so it's unreliable" (Year 6 boy); and

"The school computer is easier to use because it goes straight to Windows" (Year 6 boy).

Some families had more sophisticated computing equipment than their local schools:

"My computer at home has better things on it, more information, more programs and it's more modern" (Year 4 boy);

"At home my computer is better and faster with more memory and programs. I have 500 megs of memory at home. The school computers only have 40 megs." (Year 4 boy);

"I prefer home, because it has much better things on it to do" (Year 5 girl); and

"The ones (computers) at school don't give you all the information you want" (Year 3, girl).

Preferences for home computing varied between the schools from 50% to 93% in more affluent communities and where children had more computers in their homes. In community housing neighbourhoods computing activities at school were appreciated by higher percentages of students (up to 27%):

"At school, they give us drawing and I like drawing" (Year 3 girl).

Other reasons that children preferred to use the computer at home were the quieter environment, their familiarity with the computer, less restricted access and control over and ownership of the computer:

"because it's fun at home, you have more peace and quiet and no children talking" (Year 3 boy);

"I know how to use the computer better at home.." (Year 4 girl);

"because I can use it anytime I want, not like at school" (Year 5 boy);

"at home, you don't have to compete with others for a turn" (Year 4 boy);

"at home, I've got it to myself because at school all the boys hog it" (Year 4 girl);

"at home, you can do anything you want, you can choose" (Year 6 girl);

"I can do whatever I want instead of what the teacher says to do. I get more time to think" (Year 6 girl); and

"it's mine and I've got my own things on it " (Year 6 boy).

In the home and school environments children said that they were usually engaged in different computing activities:

"At school, we do postcards, stamps, illustrations and designing. At home, I type projects and reports" (Year 6 girl).

A few specialised computing activities were enjoyed at school because they were not available in the majority of homes: designing and making CDs; learning touch typing; learning to put graphics into documents; scanning photographs and producing newspapers; making video clips; working with animations; using a modem and the Internet.

Several students stated that help was available to them at school:

"You've got a teacher that knows how to use the computer. Mum and dad might not know much at home" (Year 4 girl).

Children reported that rules at school tended to concentrate on computer care and behaviour when using the computers. Teachers had rules about when the students can use the computer, behaviour on or near the computer, taking care of the equipment and the number of students using the computer.

"if the teacher's not there you are not allowed to use the computer" (Year 5 boy);

"be quiet" (Year 4 boy);

"can't mix up or delete anything" (Year 5 boy);

"no getting into the control panels (Year 4 girl);

"never bang on the keyboard, don't break the computer" (Year 3 girl); and

"only two people can use one computer" (Year 6 girl).

Frequency of computing varied in the home and school environments. 73% of the children in this survey used their home computer two or more times each week. Only 20% of children said that they used a school computer two or more times each week. The length of time the children used the computer at home was generally more than the time they were allowed at school. Equally important to the children was the fact that they had more control over the amount of time that they spent using the computer at home.

70% of children said that they used their home computer by themselves. At two schools, computer use was structured in ways to allow students to have a computer to themselves, at four schools computers were shared by small groups of students and at three schools computers were sometimes used by single students and small groups.

6. Appendix A : Interview Schedule

 

Space for Internet posting of this paper supplied by NoteSys, LLC

Last modified: March 08, 2006.