Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

The Internet and Education

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

The Internet and Education

The Internet has become an increasingly important feature of the learning environment for teenagers. Research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that teens use the Internet as an essential study aid outside the classroom and that the Internet increasingly has a place inside the classroom.

Here are some of the significant findings from a survey of 754 youths ages 12-17 conducted last November and December:

  • 94% of youth ages 12-17 who have Internet access say they use the Internet for school research and 78% say they believe the Internet helps them with schoolwork.
  • 71% of online teens say that they used the Internet as the major source for their most recent major school project or report.
  • 41% of online teens say they use email and instant messaging to contact teachers or classmates about schoolwork.
  • 34% of online teens have downloaded an online study aid.
  • 18% of online teens say they know of someone who has used the Internet to cheat on a paper or test.
  • 58% of online teens report using Web sites that had been set up specifically for their school or for a particular class.
  • 17% of online teens have created a Web page for a school project.

Here are some of the key findings from a survey of 754 of the parents of those youths:

  • 87% of parents of online teens believe that the Internet helps students with their schoolwork and 93% believe the Internet helps students learn new things.
  • 55% say the Internet has been a good thing for their children; only 6% say it has been a bad thing; 38% say the Internet has no effect one way or the other on their children.
  • 55% say that it is essential for today’s children to learn how to use the Internet in order to be successful and another 40% believe it is important.
  • 28% of these parents have used email to communicate with their children’s teachers.

Other education-related findings in the survey work of the Pew Internet Project:

  • 5% of adult Internet users have taken a class online for college credit. That amounts to more than 5 million people.
  • 53% of adult Internet users have gone online to do research for school or job training. On any given day 8% of adult Internet users are online doing research for school or job training.
  • 52% of adult Internet users have done job-related research online. On a typical day, 16% of Internet users are online doing job-related research. About half of Internet users (more than 50 million people) have access to the Internet at work.
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents