CHAPTER FIVE

DISCUSSION

In order for educators and researchers to evaluate the benefit of WWW use by students in public schools it is necessary to begin by attempting to understand how students perceive the WWW, what they use it for, and what gratifications they receive during periods of access. This research explored the active and goal-directed use of the WWW by middle school and high school students in 10 public schools located in five public school districts in the state of Colorado. Consistent with the study’s exploratory nature the results included the identification of gratifications sought from this new electronic interactive medium within a school setting. While this study did not provide answers to questions about the effect of WWW usage on student performance it did provide answers to a more fundamental set of questions. Two survey instruments were used to assess the following: students’ affinity for the WWW, the amount of time spent using the WWW, students’ self-assessed skill level, their beliefs about the relative value of the WWW as a source of both information and entertainment and as a means of communication, and their reasons for using or not using the WWW. And finally, student use of the WWW was monitored by sampling actual sites visited and by content-analyzing these sites for educational value.

This study supports what may have been widely suspected but heretofore unsupported by empirical research, that while students most often describe their use of the WWW as being for research and learning, actual use of the WWW appears to be for the satisfaction of other needs or interests. Also, the type of sites visited most frequently were also those rated as having the lowest value for educational purposes. Or to put it another way, much of the time spent using the WWW in these public schools would more accurately be described as "time off task."

Information vs. Entertainment

Students in this study ranked the WWW as an "excellent" or "good" source of information 90% of the time. As a source of entertainment the same students provided the same responses only 78% of the time. Clearly the WWW was perceived first and foremost by students as a source of information. However, in answer to the hypothetical question "is the WWW educational or is it fun?" the answer is clearly both. It is interesting to note that the two WWW use statements that received the strongest support by respondents to the paper survey instrument were item 54, "because it is an excellent source of information" (M = 3.81), and item 36, "because it’s fun" (M = 3.80). While these constructs have frequently been viewed in opposition, this study lends support to a position that attempts to reconcile what may be falsely understood as a dichotomy.

Using a personal computer for entertainment, even when its purchase was justified on the basis of educational goals, is not unusual. As early as 1994 Ziegler reported in the Wall Street Journal, "Bought for Work, PCs Are Used for Play." According to research reported by Ziegler, 71% of 10,500 computer users surveyed about their use of their home computer admitted to using the computer first and foremost for entertainment. Following entertainment was personal finances, school homework, and office work. Another poll of multimedia PC owners reported in the same article revealed that approximately 60% of CD-ROM titles are entertainment. In a review of uses and gratifications studies related to computers and the WWW, Reynolds, Walther, Gurak, and Eadie (1998) concluded that "entertainment has been the primary motivation for using computers and accessing the web" (p. 6). Other researchers have concluded that media use for entertainment may be related to age. Dimmick, McCain, and Bolton (1979) reviewed several uses and gratifications studies and concluded that media use for informational purposes was unusual in childhood and adolescence, with some gains in late adolescence into young adulthood (pp. 21-22). Their analysis of the research led them to hypothesize a curvilinear relationship between media use for information and position in the life span (p. 26).

However, the fact that students surveyed believed the WWW to be an excellent source of information may also be cause for concern. In addition to the problem of the abundance of irrelevant, inaccurate, or age-inappropriate information that frequently vies for the students’ attention, the quality and utility of what may appear to be useful information is problematic. Aikat (1995) conducted a content analysis of a random sample of 1,140 academic, government and commercial WWW pages in order to analyze their information content. According to Aikat, "Public Relations (21.93 percent) and Advertising (20.70 percent) were the dominant information categories for the three types of WWW sites studied" (p. 95). The fact that Public Relations and Advertising were the "dominant categories" of information for both commercial and academic WWW pages (pp. 96, 102) should send up red flags for those interested in accurate, reliable, and objective information for academic research.

Tim Berners-Lee (1997), inventor of the WWW, observed that much of the information on the WWW is of questionable quality and offered training as the solution:

It is important to realize that the Web is what we make it. "We" being the people who read, the people who teach children how to surf the Web, the people who put information up on the Web. Particularly the people who make links.... The Web doesn’t force anything down your throat. If you are worried that your children are going to read low-quality information, teach them. Teach them what to read. Teach them how to judge information. (p. 36)

Granted there is much excellent information available on the WWW. But as this study’s content analysis of sites visited seems to indicate, students frequently are either not looking for it, or if they are, are unsuccessful in finding it. It is quite possible that users who approach a Web search with instrumental intentions may soon find themselves distracted by the entertainment and diversionary opportunities presented. The ease with which one can travel to any corner of this vast Web can be both a blessing and a curse. And this is not a unique observation. A study of 6th and 9th grade science students found that without substantial guidance and assistance, students were often unsuccessful in locating useful academic information on the WWW (Lyons, Hoffman, Krajcik, & Soloway, 1997). According to the researchers, "one overall theme is clear from the data: students need a tremendous amount of support to be successful in online inquiry" (p. 12).

Commercialization of the WWW

The commercialization of the WWW and the growth of online advertising is another area of growing concern for educational technology advocates. The disproportionate use of commercial WWW sites by students in this study, as indicated by the .com suffix of the URL, is just one indicator of the potential exposure of children to advertising. Wartella (1993), presenting an historical context for educational media, wrote,

Indeed, the recurring public controversies over first film, then radio and television programming for children, demonstrate that the commercial media systems of this century have never lived up to their educational promises for children. (p. 144)

Students are often unaware of the questionable nature and value of information from commercial WWW sites. Lyons et al. (1997) found that students "often choose a commercial site (.com in the URL) over a government (.gov) or education (.edu) site" (p. 21-22), an observation supported by this research. In the interview conducted with several students, most mentioned commercial sites as those that they used most frequently. The six students who were interviewed for the pilot study were asked to identify the URL, given four choices, they would use to "go to" the WWW site for the Whitehouse. While four students identified www.whitehouse.gov as the correct address, two of the students identified www.whitehouse.com as the one they would choose. In this case the mistake has even greater ramifications. The commercial "Whitehouse" address is a sexually explicit parody site that features pornography.

While unregulated advertising itself is cause for concern, the unique capability afforded by the WWW to collect user information and track usage raises even greater concern. The Zap Me corporation announced a program to give free computers with satellite-based Internet service to schools in exchange for the opportunity to include advertising in a corner of the monitor. In a New York Times article dated February 25, 1999, Richtel described the Zap Me system, which tracks the user’s "grade level, sex and Zip code" in order to "dish out age and sex-appropriate advertisements" (p. G7). At the time of the article the company had "given computers to 55 schools in eight states." This kind of targeted advertising and the collection of user data for commercial purposes should be of concern not only to privacy advocates but also to educators and parents who are concerned about the negative effects of consumer-driven culture.

Acceptable Use

At some point the discussion about student use of the WWW at school focuses on the degree to which that use is acceptable or unacceptable. Acceptable use of the WWW at school is most often articulated in the school’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which is required before student access is granted (see Appendix K). As indicated in Chapter Four, each of the schools in this study employed an AUP as a means of informing parents and students about the online services provided by the school and the rules guiding its use. Another purpose of the AUP is to minimize the school district’s legal liability for children’s activities online. A completed form must be submitted containing both student’s and parent’s or guardian’s signatures before access is granted to individual students. Implicit in the use of AUPs is influence by school administrators, teachers, and parents on students to use the WWW in a manner consistent with published norms or conventions. It is assumed that such influence has a significant effect—if not on behavior—at least on self-reported behavior. However, despite the fact that some WWW behavior—e.g., chatting, game playing, and viewing pornography—was discouraged by official AUP guidelines, students were willing to claim these as reasons why they used the WWW. Content analysis of sites visited confirmed that these types of WWW sites were visited by students in this study.

Clearly some of the student WWW use observed during the course of this study was not consistent with acceptable use as defined by the districts’ AUPs. One explanation is that students are not as familiar with the expectations set forth in the AUPs as the school districts might hope. During the pilot study several students were interviewed at length about their use of the WWW and the policies in place at their schools. Of the six students who provided interviews, all were aware that the school had an AUP but most were unable to provide a clear description of what it said about using the WWW. A summary of their responses to this question appears in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1

Interview Responses to the Question, "What does your school’s Acceptable Use Policy say about using the WWW?"

Student Response

*Note: None of the schools represented by students who were interviewed employed blocking software to prevent access to specific sites.

The Dark Side of the Web

Rosengren and Windahl (1989) wrote,

Today’s moral panics about videos, cable, satellites, computer games and the like, may concern rather ephemeral phenomena. It may be true that for some time media novelties may have a capacity to spell-bind children, preventing them from other, perhaps better, activities. But it is probably also true that such an influence will be transient and will be greatly reduced or even vanish as the "new" media find their place in society. (p. 250)

While some of the moral panic spoken of by Rosengren and Windahl may have faded, it appears obvious that the "new" medium of the moment, the WWW, has simply attracted, and perhaps amplified, the concern that was once focused on the old media. According to Stephen Kerr, professor in the College of Education at the University of Washington,

The Net’s beauty is that it’s uncontrolled…It’s information by anyone, for anyone. There’s racist stuff, bigoted, hate-group stuff, filled with paranoia; bomb recipes; how to engage in various kinds of crimes, electronic and otherwise; scams and swindles. It’s all there. It’s all available…That’s the antithesis of what classroom kids should be exposed to. (quoted in Oppenhiemer, 1997, p. 61)

Concern about inappropriate material available on the WWW is one reason for the widespread use of AUPs. Perhaps the issues of greatest concern focus on the presence of hate speech, sites promoting violent behavior and the means to carry out violent activities, pornography, and sexually explicit material. In an interview with a technology specialist from one of the schools in the study the opinion was expressed that sexually explicit content was not as great a concern as other potentially dangerous content: "For the most part it’s boobs, not bombs…it’s not the end of the world." This statement appears to be consistent with a trend reported in the news media. In the wake of the Columbine shooting and other incidents of school violence, according to a report in the New York Times, federal and state legislation designed to regulate access to particular content on the WWW has shifted focus "from pornography and child predators to violence" (Clausing, 1999, May 20).

Although students did not mention the category of sexually explicit WWW sites when initially asked "what is the WWW good for?," sexually explicit sites and pornography was one of two leading responses to the write-in portion of the computer-administered survey question "what is your purpose for using the WWW at this time?" (see Appendix I). There are several possible explanations for this apparent discrepancy. First, it is possible that students were simply attempting to provide a response that they thought would shock or startle the researcher. Another explanation can be found in the Turner et al. (1998) study mentioned earlier which seems to suggest that the more socially unacceptable a behavior is believed to be, the greater the effect that technology-assisted data collection will have on the accuracy of the reported data. In this case the increased anonymity afforded by the computer-administered survey may have resulted in more truthful responses. The second reason for this may be that the open-ended question asked "what is the WWW good for?" and the short-survey asked "what is your purpose for using the WWW at this time?" The first question gets to the "normative image" (Perse & Courtright, 1993; Lichtenstein & Rosenfeld, 1984) that students hold of the WWW. This normative image may be based on what Dorr and Kunkel (1990) referred to as a new medium’s "signature content" and is evaluative in nature. The second question is more personal and focuses attention on the student’s intent to use the WWW at a particular point in time. Finally, a distinction can be made between gratifications sought (GS) and gratifications obtained (GO) (Palmgreen, Wenner, & Rayburn, 1981, p. 473). The first question, "what is the WWW good for?" addresses GO while the second question, "what is your purpose for using the WWW at this time?" seeks information about GS.

Socialization

Socialization is an essential element in any discussion of adolescent media use. Arnett (1995) categorized cultures as promoting and valuing either narrow or broad socialization. Simply defined, narrow socialization encourages a singular world-view and values conformity and collectivity over individuality. A society that takes a broad socialization approach encourages diversity of opinion and behavior amongst members and promotes freedom of speech. Adolescent media use for the purpose of socialization in the US culture would be understood by Arnett as falling into the latter category. The diversity of media available to adolescents, and the commercial nature of our media systems, enables young people to seek out and find media content that provides reinforcement of their own personal preferences. Where other socialization agents, e.g., family and school, may have more conservative agendas that seek to promote socially acceptable norms, the media’s agendas are less conservative and driven by commercial motives. Some media are more conservative than others. For example, governmental regulation of the broadcast media and industry supported ratings for motion pictures can restrict access to some content for young people. However, the unregulated nature of the WWW and its diversity of content providers serves to ensure the widest possible range of content. While other educational media are controlled by the school teachers and administrators who make decisions about what books, videos, and magazines to place in the media collection, the unfiltered WWW has been made available to students who frequently operate on an honor code of self-regulation. Where teachers and professional educators once took full responsibility to select and screen media content for student use, now a student’s and parent’s signature on an Acceptable Use Policy is relied upon to ensure that students make wise choices about what mediated content to consume.

Concern over student use of the WWW at the expense of other socialization forces continues to be of great concern and the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado has focused renewed attention on the effect of media on children. In particular, the killers’ alleged fascination with violent computer games and Harris’ hate-filled WWW site have caused great concern for those who are unwilling to believe that media use is somehow disconnected from behavior. Parents have expressed concern about media violence as indicated by a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll conducted shortly after the Littleton shooting. According to USA TODAY, 65% of parents surveyed indicated that the Internet "deserves top priority—over video games, TV, movies, and pop music" (Oldenberg & Snider, 1999). In response to the Littleton tragedy, President Clinton called for parents to monitor children’s media consumption, including their activities on the Internet (Seelye, 1999). However, when children have access to the Internet outside of the home parental monitoring is difficult.

Interviews with the technology specialists at the 10 schools revealed that most were unaware of discussions or policy reviews of WWW use by students as a result of the tragic events at Columbine High School. However, several technology specialists did relate incidents that they associated with the Columbine incident. One described an incident in which several male students were acting suspiciously in the computer lab. A review of the computer’s cache file revealed that the students had been accessing some "unsavory stuff" such as "kill.com, rotton.com, and a trench coat/hate site." Another technology specialist said, "Columbine was a kick in the butt." He continued, "I have a lot of the Gothic and trench coat type kids helping me in the media center. I shut down the Internet access for a couple of weeks after Columbine except for specific cases. I wasn’t in the mood emotionally to monitor it. I’m more strict with it now than before…it [Columbine] was a real wake-up call."

Filtering the WWW

The "dark side of the Web" (Glod, 1999, June 1; Poole, 1999, April 26) had been of concern to parents and school administrators long before the shooting at Columbine High School. One hotly contested solution to the problem of students accessing this material is filtering. Proponents of filtering have cited statistics that paint a frightening picture of the content that is daily being added to the WWW. In testimony offered before the Senate Commerce Committee’s discussion of the Children’s Internet Protection Act, filtering advocates described the growth of inappropriate content online. Dr. Peter Nickerson, president and CEO of an Internet filtering company, said that his staff of 75 finds, in a given week, "180 hate pages, 2,500-7,500 adult and child pornography pages, 400 violence pages, and 50 murder and suicide related pages" (Headlines extra, 1999, May 20). According to a recent study conducted by Yankelovich Partners for Websense, parents and teens support the use of software filtering at school (Yankelovich Partners, 1999). Opponents of filtering have cited First Amendment concerns, legal liability issues, unintended effects of filtering software, and the need to teach students to be savvy consumers of information as reasons to support access to the unfiltered WWW.

Telephone interviews with the technology specialists at each school surveyed indicated that filtering continues to be a controversial topic among those responsible for providing and monitoring WWW access. Only one district of the five surveyed employed filtering—a statistic that appears to be well below the national average. According to research conducted by Quality Education Data, reported in the New York Times, 58% of public school teachers interviewed stated that Internet access at their school was filtered—an increase from 38% reported the year before (Mendels, 1999, May 12). Interviews with the technology specialists employed by schools in this study revealed that several favored an approach that taught responsible use rather than "censorship." One technology specialists who indicated that the school encouraged use of subscription services such as the electronic library and World Book Online rather than filtering said, "Kids prefer it [subscription services] because its easier to find things and the source is reliable." However, two of the technology specialists who were interviewed indicated that they favored filtering. According to one high school technology specialist, "The net is very difficult to monitor…the administration is more opposed to filtering than those of us out here in the schools. It’s a nightmare to monitor these kids."

Limitations

The most obvious limitation of this study is the sample and the methodology employed in its selection. Use of non-probabilistic sampling for schools chosen and self-selection of students taking the computer-administered surveys are acknowledged as restricting the generalizability of this study. Because of the non-random nature of the sample, generalization to the larger population of US adolescents is discouraged. However, this study aided in the identification of several motivations for use of the WWW at school and these offer heuristic value for future research.

Another limitation of this study is the result of an inherent limitation of survey research—specifically the likelihood of demand effect. Students were likely to respond with what they believed to be the socially acceptable answer or the "correct" answer to some of the survey questions.

As Charney (1996) found using a similar approach to study college students’ use of the WWW, a complicating factor is that student use of this medium is confounded by use that has been assigned by a teacher. Unlike uses and gratifications studies of other media, use of the WWW, especially in a school setting, is a mixture of uses motivated by personal interest as well as those proscribed by authority figures. In this study there was no way to differentiate student use that was self-motivated versus use that was encouraged or even mandated by teachers.

Also, because of the need to protect the anonymity of respondents, students were not identified in a way that allowed comparisons between the two survey instruments. Neither were comparisons possible between the responses to the survey instruments and the content analysis of WWW sites visited by students. A research design that allowed for anonymous tracking of responses from one survey instrument to the next, and then tied WWW sites visited to a specific anonymous respondent, would have added tremendous heuristic value to the study.

Another limitation was realized during the data collection for the content analysis phase of the research and was an artifact of the caching process employed by both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Neither program records visits to sites that take place within frames of other sites. This could have resulted in the underreporting of some sites in specific instances.

With regard to the statistical analyses employed, this researcher frequently relied on simplistic procedures allowed by qualitative variables. Collection of interval-level data would have permitted greater sophistication in the statistical design and more extensive use of multivariate analysis. The nature of the study and the changing notion of what constitutes viable factor loadings made this part of the analysis particularly challenging. As indicated in Chapter Four, several use statements loaded on two factors and these were retained on both factors rather than delete the item altogether. The fact that varimax rotation was used instead of orthogonal may have contributed to this dilemma.

Validity

One important consideration of any uses and gratifications study, and especially one conducted in an educational setting with school students, is the question of whether respondents are willing to be truthful in response to questions that may reveal socially unacceptable behavior (Becker, 1979, p. 57).

Content and construct validity are conditional on the subjects’ interpretation of questions and response categories. While attempts were made to present use categories in the vernacular of the participants, misunderstandings because of the vagaries of language are unavoidable.

Conclusions

In the opening chapter of Failure to Connect, Healy (1998) stated: "Today’s children are the subjects of a vast and optimistic experiment" (p. 17). Referring to the use of computers for educational purposes, Healy argued that computers raise more questions than they answer and concluded with a call for accountability and common sense. Cuban (1996) had a similar response and couched his assessment in a historical context.

First, techno-reformers’ claims for what new machines can do are so inflated that public expectations continually get disappointed. Overselling has been (and continues to be) part of a familiar American cycle of creating a crisis, naming schools or teachers as a problem, and putting forward new machines (film, television, computers) as the best solution. Yet each technological innovation has had, at best, an uneven record in entering schools and classrooms. Why? (n.p.)

Based on this exploration of WWW use in school, several findings would appear to have policy implications for schools using or making plans to use the WWW for educational purposes. First, while students believe the WWW to be a valuable source of reliable information, their use of the WWW suggests other motivations. Analysis of sites visited indicated that by nearly a two-to-one margin students visited sites rated "unsuitable for academic research" versus sites rated "suitable." Seeking out "pleasurable experience" appeared to win out over "learning information" (Swanson, 1992) when students were given access to the WWW within the school setting. Furthermore, the types of sites visited most frequently, i.e., commercial sites, were rated as having the lowest educational value.

Also of note is the incongruity between students’ self-reported use of the WWW and the uses suggested by the analysis of sites visited by students. Either students falsely reported their intentions or intervening variables affected the process of searching for and obtaining relevant information. One untested hypothesis to emerge from this study is that the best of intentions may be confounded by the ease with which students can access a myriad of competing sites that vie for their attention. Another possibility is that the students’ understanding of research is more broadly defined and includes looking for content that has little or no relationship to traditional academic pursuits.

When it comes time to evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of media technology in the schools media effects researchers cannot have it both ways. Either media effects are real and the potential benefit of educational media must be balanced by constant vigilance against access to WWW sites that are at best a distraction and at worst a hindrance to the educational and social development of our children. Or, media effects are limited and mediated by user motives, attitudes, and use patterns, and any potential benefit of educational media in the schools is contingent on the proper psychological and sociological predictor variables. If this is the case, attention to these factors must be a top priority and WWW access must be implemented with the goal of creating the proper climate for learning to occur. In either case WWW literacy efforts—teaching students how to most effectively use the best resources on the WWW—are sorely needed. Since picking and choosing only the best WWW resources for students is not a viable option, giving students the tools to make wise decisions about media content is crucial.

 

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