report from the IEA Second International Technology in Education Study (SITES) survey

• John Ainley, and others
• Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)

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07 March 2011The IEA Second International Technology in Education Study (SITES) is an international comparative research program studying the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in education. Its central focus is on understanding how ICT affects the way teaching and learning takes place in schools. In many educational systems there is a desire to use ICT to support changes in teaching and learning and policies have been implemented to promote the use of ICT by equipping schools with computers and network connections, training teachers in the use of ICT and providing digital resources. Although there is a growing body of research on the educational effects of ICT, much of it is based on intensive studies of small samples. SITES, however, surveyed large representative samples of schools using questionnaires with established psychometric properties so that variations within, and among, countries in the links between ICT and pedagogy could be investigated. The SITES project was conducted internationally in 22 countries during 2006 and then implemented in Australia as a comparison study in 2007.

Authors: John Ainley, Frances Eveleigh, Chris Freeman, Kate O'Malley.

Image: bionicteaching / flickr