Engl. transl.: Does Daily Media Screen Time Add to the Prediction of Educational Aspirations of Pupils Finishing Elementary School?

Adolescents spend a sizeable amount of daily time using media, consequently exposing themselves to an ecological techno-subsystem which, according to the ecological systems theory, may influence several aspects of their development, including educational aspirations. This research aimed to determine daily screen time 8th-grade pupils spent on social media, video games, and films, TV-series and videos, and to find whether the screen times, in addition to individual variables of gender and school achievement, family variables of parental education, support, expectations and educational and media resources, add to the prediction of preference towards grammars school versus vocational education. Besides, differences in screen times with respect to gender, school preferences, and part of the week (working days or weekends) were examined. The participants were 828 pupils attending the finishing grade of elementary schools in Zagreb, Croatia. The participants’ age ranged from 14 to 15, and 46.4 % of them identified themselves as female. The data was collected using selfreported questionnaires administered during school classes. Adolescents who aspire towards vocational schools spend 3 to 6 hours on screen per day, while adolescents with aspirations towards higher secondary education spend 1.5 to 3 hours. In addition to the GPA, gender, socioeconomic variables, and perceived parental support and expectations, daily screen times on different media significantly add to the prediction of adolescents’ educational aspirations at the end of primary education. More screen time of playing video games and watching films, TV series, and videos predicts aspiration towards vocational education while more time spent on social media predicts aspiration towards higher secondary education, but only among girls

"The aim of the research was to determine whether daily time of use of modern media by eighth grade primary school students, and knowledge of student media habits and resources in addition to school success and family material (possession of educational resources) and process variables support contribute to anticipating their high school educational aspirations at the end of primary school. The obtained results on the connection between material educational resources of families and parents 'education with students' educational aspirations confirm the set hypothesis - eighth-graders who apply to vocational schools have significantly fewer educational resources (desk, separate room and number of books) than eighth-graders who want to enroll in gymnasium. A similar positive association with success and aspirations was found for parental educational status. Eighth-graders who have higher aspirations in this study come from families with higher educational status than those who aspire to vocational schools. Findings confirm that material resources are generally somewhat less associated with success than parental education. The mere availability of more media resources has not proven to be predictive for predicting the type of high school aspiration, although it is significant but weakly associated with better school performance. However, bivariate correlations of school selection with individual media resources show that the resources used for gaming (console) and communication (mobile phone) are not significantly related to students' educational aspirations, while the availability of a computer and internet connection are. While practically all children have a mobile phone or smartphone, computer ownership is more closely related to subgroups in terms of educational aspirations, and thus indirectly in terms of socioeconomic status." Kuterovac Jaogdić, 2020, 209-210 (translated by the coder)