Adolescents' informal computer usage and their expectations of ICT in teaching – Case study: Serbia

This paper presents research with the basic goal of establishing the structure of informal computer use among adolescents in the Republic of Serbia, and of verifying the existence of a statistically significant correlation between this and their expectations regarding the implementation of ICT in the teaching process. This research was conducted by examining the opinions of 14e18 year-old adolescents regarding their computer use, Internet and social networks, and their expectations related to ICT in teaching. The results were obtained from 318 questionnaires consisting of 32 questions distributed among a representative, focused sample of adolescents: seventh and eighth grade primary, grammar and high school pupils in the Republic of Serbia. The research was carried out during the 2013/2014 school year. Data processing included a descriptive and correlative analysis which showed that Serbian adolescents are very active when it comes to informal computer use, and that there is a statistically significant correlation between the dimensions of computer use among adolescents and their expectations regarding ICT in teaching. The obtained results provide a foundation for the prediction of educational strategies regarding mandatory ICT integration in teaching courses, and the implementation of ICT in realizing teaching content.

"Only 12.89% of the examinees said that they spend less than an hour a day using the computer, and 23.91% spend over three hours. The majority of them, 178 or 76.47% stay up late at night using it, usually until midnight at the latest on working days, and 5.39% stay awake two hours after midnight even then. At weekends, 78.3% stay up after midnight, and the activities they perform are: listening to music 84.47%, playing games 43.17%, watching movies 64.6%, looking at photographs 54.35%, visiting social networks 87.89%, and other activities 21.74%. Without any particular goal, 21.74% surf the internet, and 54.66% surf with the purpose of learning. The majority of the examinees stated that in terms of preferred social network they usually use Facebook 97.8%, then Twitter with 28.93%, Instagram 29.87%, Ask.fm 14.47% and others 20.44%. The preferred communication services of the participants are: Facebook 88.05%, e-mail 74.85%, Skype 61.64%, Messenger 31.33%, Viber 32.39% and others 15.09%. It is interesting to look at their answer to the question as to whether they surf the net during classes on their mobile phones, secretly of course: 50.94% said they do not, but the remaining 49.06% use their phones during the teaching process." (Glušac, Makitan, Karuović, Radosav, & Milanov, 2015, p. 138) "There is a statistically significant correlation between the dimensions of computer use among adolescents and their expectations regarding ICT in teaching." (Glušac, Makitan, Karuović, Radosav, & Milanov, 2015, p. 133)