Exploring Secondary School Pupils’ ICT Engagement: A Validation Study

Abstract

This paper regards a validation study aiming to explore secondary school pupils’ ICT engagement. A 36-item questionnaire was administered to 246 adolescents (12 - 15 years old) of an experimental school, in Greece. Four factors were extracted: “ICT self-concept”, “social exposure to ICT”, “interest in computers” and “interest in mobile devices”. The factorial structure of the “ICT engagement” questionnaire was revealed. The majority of the pupils expressed strong interest towards both computers and mobile devices. Over 90% of the adolescents believe that the internet is very useful to find practical information, that they can handle mobile phones confidently, and that they know how to download new applications for a mobile phone. Gender was statistically significant correlated to “ICT self-concept” and “social exposure to ICT”, where the boys had higher mean values in comparison to girls. The frequency of computer use had positive correlations with the factors “ICT self-concept”, “social exposure to ICT” and “interest in computers”. It is suggested to describe adolescents’ ICT engagement with respect to discrete dimensions. In particular, the dimensions-factors “interest in computers” and “interest in mobile devices” should be distinct when defining concepts related to ICT engagement. The questionnaire is suggested to be used with other adolescent populations of different countries, in order to reveal possible similarities and differences.