Learning with ICT at primary level: pupils' perceptions

Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (2002) 18, 282-295

282 2002 Blackwell Science Ltd

Learning with ICT at primary level:pupils’ perceptions

T.A. GoodisonThe National ICT Research Centre, University of Wolverhampton

Abstract This study investigated primary schoolchildren’s awareness ofthe linkage between ICT and the way they learn within the context of aschool that has been particularly successful in integrating ICT into thecurriculum. Pupils were interviewed by their teacher and, extracts fromthe dialogue, identify examples of good practice and describe some of thechallenges that still lie ahead..

Keywords: Attitude; Case study; Curriculum; Interview; IT-use; Primary;Qualitative

Purpose and scope

The integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) into primaryeducation in the UK has been proceeding apace over the last few years and there issome evidence that this might be having an effect on standards at Key Stage 2 — anational test of ability for pupils of about 11-years old — (BECTa, 2000; 2001) butvery little has been done to investigate primary schoolchildren’s perceptions of thelinkage between ICT and the way they learn. This paper derives from a longitudinalstudy of the development of a broadband network linking all the schools within alocal authority in the West Midlands (UK). The focus so far has been on threeprimary schools located in contrasting socio-economic environments but withexcellent ICT resources which are well integrated into the curriculum. Despite theexistence of common ICT standards at the level of the local authority, there are stillsignificant differences in the way in which ICT is configured and used in the threeschools, differences which have some far-reaching effects on teacher and pupilattitudes towards learning with ICT. When pupil perceptions of the contribution ICTmakes to their learning were analysed, by conducting interviews with samples ofpupils from all three schools, the effects of these differences were clearly discernible.

Because of the quantity and diversity of the recorded material, it was decided, forthe purposes of this paper, to concentrate on just one of the schools, essentiallybecause the pupils there produced more statements, and more insightful statements,about computers and learning than in the other two schools. There are severalinterconnected reasons for this. Perhaps the most important is the degree of verbalsophistication and self-confidence manifested by the pupils themselves which theteachers readily ascribe, rightly or wrongly, to the relatively high socio-economic oftheir parents.

Accepted 5 March 2002

Correspondence: T.A.Goodison, Research Directorate, The National ICT Research Centre, University ofWolverhampton, UK Email: [email protected]

Learning with ICT at primary level 283

2002 Blackwell Science Ltd, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18, 282-295

But there are also other factors to be considered: for example, the school’s teachingand learning policy explicitly stresses the development of the qualities observed inthe interviews:

. . . we believe that there are other important aspects of learning which should not beignored: independence; collaboration; the ability to relate to others in a social contextand self-confidence.

The school’s documentation also emphasises the importance of the role of ICT in thecreation of a learning community:

With increased use of technology we are already finding that teaching and learningbecomes a far more collaborative process with adults and children being engaged inboth. . . Schools will become much more of a whole learning community. Childrenwill be able to lead and direct the learning with the support of their teachers and otherchildren, they will feel much more in control of the learning and therefore moreenthusiastic. (Internal ICT Development Plan, September, 2000)

The classroom observations that were carried out in maths, science and literacyshowed that these aspirations were not mere managerial rhetoric and so it is perhapsunderstandable that the children were more aware of issues related to ICT andlearning and more able to articulate their views. The school’s ICT policy alsoexplicitly linked the use of the interactive whiteboard* to the pursuit of learningthrough social interaction. This aspect of the school’s work has had an important,positive effect on pupil perceptions of ICT and learning, as we shall see later:

The electronic whiteboard connected to a network means that the children have aworld of resources at their finger tips ready for discussion, to test hypotheses andresearch. The children do this as a large co-operative group. It ensures that learningbecomes a much more collaborative and social process therefore a much morepowerful way of learning across the curriculum. The ‘theorists’ such as Vygotsky andBruner tell us that interaction with others is of crucial importance in learning.Teachers and pupils are able to discuss, modify and extend ideas in a shared arena.

(Interal ICT Development Plan, September, 2000)

However, the writer’s cautious use of the future tense with respect to the ‘wholelearning community’ was found to be justified by what the children had to say abouttheir learning experiences. One of the main conclusions to emerge from the study isthat the complexity of the task of integrating ICT into the curriculum should not beunderestimated. Here is a school which, in BECTa’s terms (BECTa, 2001) is a‘school of the future achieving today’. There are high quality ICT resources, wellused by well led and well motivated teachers. Yet the children’s comments are areminder that, behind the statistics, a subtle and profound change is underway whichmakes significant demands of all parties involved.

Data gathering

The size of the whole sample (in all three schools) was 85 pupils. In the case of theschool upon which this paper is focused, 15 pupils were selected from Year 2(children aged 7) and 15 from Year 5 (children aged 10). It was felt worthwhile totry and obtain some information from pupils at the end of Key Stage 1 in order to beable to place the views of Key Stage 2 children in a broader perspective. It might

* An interactive whiteboard allows teachers to display computer applications with which it is possible tointeract either by touching the board or writing on it with a special pen. The commercial name for onesuch device is Smartboard and the children used this name in the interviews.

284 T.A. Goodison


have been preferable to interview children from Year 6 (children aged 11 in the lastyear of primary school), but the dates of the interviews coincided with theirpreparations for SATS (Standard Assessment Tests).

The intention being to interview the children in groups of three, it would havebeen necessary to allocate more than two days to the interview process, if the wholeclass was to be covered. Since the school was not prepared to countenance this levelof disruption, the teachers were asked to select 15 pupils from each class,representing a balance between ability levels: five above average, five average andfive below average for the age group. In this case the term ‘average’ relates toteachers’ perceptions of the average for the school and not to a national average.Teachers were further asked to ensure that the sexes were equally represented andthat the ethnic mix of the sample matched that of the class as a whole. Where achoice was possible, a child with good verbal communication skills was to bepreferred to one with less good communication skills, for obvious reasons.

Method

It was decided that the class teacher would conduct the interviews rather than theresearcher, who would act as ‘technician and observer’ instead. Teachers and theirpupils build up a richly textured set of shared experiences as they use ICT within theclassroom, experiences that are needed to achieve any degree of understanding of theprocesses at work in ICT integration. The only way to do this economically was byrecording conversations between teacher and pupils as they recall and reflect on theirwork together. The teacher, in this approach, becomes the medium for eliciting andelucidating evidence of the children’s experiences, by structuring the conversationsappropriately, on the basis of the interview template provided by the researcher, andinterpreting any utterances which could be obscure to an observer.

A group interview format was selected instead of one-to-one interview, since thefewer the number of interviewees, the greater the power difference between theinterviewer and the interviewee and the greater the tendency for the latter to give theresponses that the former wishes to hear (Silverman, 1973). At the other end of thescale, because the interview was of a semi-structured variety (a list of questions, withthe interviewer given freedom to follow-up answers in depth) a larger groupmembership of around six would have been impractical. Whilst a group of this sizewould have allowed more interaction amongst the interviewees and reduced thepower difference, it would have made it more difficult for the teacher to focus theattention of the children on the issues to be discussed. In the end, in order to achievea balance between these two conflicting pressures, it was decided that the interviewgroups would consist of three children, and that the risk of pupils giving answersintended to conform to teacher expectations would be offset by the teacher’s freedomto probe further and bring other participants into the conversation.

There are two problems with this approach. Firstly, as Shotter’s work on socialaccountability indicates (Shotter, 1984), a teacher, anxious to present him/herself asa competent professional and user of ICT in the classroom, might be tempted to usethe interviews to showcase their own teaching skills. The format of the interview,however, provides few opportunities for this type of behaviour. On the one hand, thefocus is squarely on the children, not the teacher, and, on the other hand, thepresence of the researcher would discourage any radical departure from the agreedformat. In addition, neither the teacher nor the pupils were aware that the focus of



the research was on perceptions of learning. As far as both parties were concerned,the goal of the exercise was simply to collect children’s views about usingcomputers. The second problem was that, in this situation, one cannot be sure towhat extent the children recognise their intended meaning in the teacher’sconstruction of the topic. Fortunately, these methodological issues did not detractfrom the value that the teachers themselves placed on the data. They saw the exerciseas valuable and revealing and requested that the recordings and transcripts be madeavailable to all staff. So whilst there are, inevitably, issues surrounding the reliabilityof the testimony provided, the interviews had validity in the eyes of teaching staff.

There were 10 questions in all and the same ones were used for Years 2 and 5.Each interview lasted between 20 and 25 minutes.

Question Purpose

1. Which programs do you like using most at Aims to get the conversation started by promptingschool? (maths, drawing, finding information, writing)

pupils’ memories.2. Reasons for preferences? Do children’s preferences reveal the existence of

positive, learning-related values?3. Which programs do you like using least? Aims to identify negative experiences.4. Reasons for dislikes? Do children’s dislikes reveal the existence of

positive, learning-related values?5. When does using computers in class help you Probes the level of the children’s metacognitive

learn? awareness (links to questions 1 and 2).6. When does using computers in class not help As above (links to questions 3 and 4).

you learn?7. When you get stuck using the computer at Tests for existence of a problem solving strategy

school, where do you get help from? in the use of applications. An indicator ofdeveloping independence.

8. Do you like using the whiteboard/Smartboard? Provides insights into children’s awareness of thebenefits of group or whole class learning.

9. Would you like to be able to use computers Invites children to reflect on their whole learningmore at school, or less? experience and the role of computers in it.

10. How did you learn to use computers? Invites children to reflect on their past experiencesWas it just at school? and the extent of their learning environment.

The themes that emerged most strongly from the interviews can be classified underthe following headings:

Theme Issues

1. Learning to use computers Pupils’ ability to identify strengths and weaknesses of softwareand compare programs on the basis of functionality and usability.The input of friends, family and classmates. How to get help.

2. Assessing productivity Pupils’ assessments of the ways in which computers makethem more, or less, productive in terms of task completion.

3. Evaluating the quality of Pupils’ perspectives on the extent to which ICT enhances orlearning detracts from learning.

4. Social learning Pupils’ awareness of the extent to which ICT promotes, orconstrains, effective learning with others.

Learning to use computers

Home and schoolThe interviews elicited two main types of response: descriptions of how pupilsextend their ICT competence and how they go about solving any problems that arise.The children did not spontaneously differentiate between their experiences at homeand at school and the interviewers often had to focus the pupils’ attention specificallyon the school dimension. This is an important point since it emphasises that, forthese primary school children, learning how to use ICT is largely a seamless

286 T.A. Goodison


experience where inputs from school and the home are intermingled. Thiscomplements the findings reported in BECTa’s report on home-school links(BECTA, 2001). The following extract shows how staff are able to exploit thisphenomenon in a positive way, and, incidentally, the value of using the teacher torecall past experiences. Note that the numbers at the left are used to identifyconversational turns, so this extract starts at the fifth turn in this particularconversation):

5 Teacher: Right, what about you Kieran, when did you start learning about computers?6 At first, when I before, I couldn’t remember when I did but how I learnt was I saw my

brother do it and I saw everyone else do it and I learnt from them and I learnt mostly frommy brother. He told me how to copy and paste and stuff.

7 Teacher: He told you how to use Powerpoint as well, didn’t he? and that was very useful.8 Yes, my sister told me how to do Powerpoint.9 Teacher: Did she?10 Yes.11 Teacher: That was very useful wasn’t it? Because who did you tell then?12 You, the whole class. (pupil aged 7)

The transfer of learning in ICT is two-way: from home to school and from school tohome, and just as siblings (and parents) play an important role at home, so doclassmates at school. A great deal of learning goes on outside the times when theteacher is in control of the process:

2 Well at home I used to watch my dad go on it and he used to show me how to go on littlegames and stuff when I was little but I didn’t really do much about Publisher and then Igot to the school and everyone showed me how to use it, showed me how to log on myname and I used to learn how to use it and then when I got home I used to go on it quite alot after I learned at school.

3 Teacher: When you say everybody, who do you mean?4 Well I think Lauren used to help me she had to show me what to do when I asked her

what to do and I think Alicia’s helped me a couple of times when I’ve got stuck oncomputer.

5 Teacher: So you think you’ve learned more about computers from perhaps people you’vebeen sitting next to, your friends who you’ve worked with on the computer than anybodyelse?

6 Yes. (pupil aged 10)

The closeness and bi-directionality of the home/school link is positive in mostrespects, but there is a down-side from the teachers’ viewpoint. Since these are thevery early stages of ICT implementation, even in schools such as this, it is perhapsinevitable that some teachers’ relative inexperience with using computers shouldinfluence their relationships with pupils who have already acquired significantsoftware-specific knowledge. Here is a telling extract where the teacher, herself anextremely competent user, finds that some of her pupils do not have confidence inher ability to deal with problems when they arise:

1 Teacher: If you were doing something on the computer and you were completely stuckand didn’t know what else to do, in school, what would you do?

2 I wouldn’t ask the teacher, I would go for help.3 . . . help and support menu4 I’d go to him.5 Teacher: So you’d ask somebody else in class, one of your friends, or you’d use the help

option. Why wouldn’t you go to the teacher?6 (Embarrassed laughter).7 Teacher: Go on, be honest as well.8 (Embarrassed laughter).9 Teacher: Shall I say what you’re all thinking then? That probably your teacher doesn’t

know as much as you do? Is that what you’re thinking?10 (All) No.11 I think that I’m not sure really. I don’t think that . . . I don’t know actually. (aged 10)



Despite the children’s denial, subsequent responses demonstrate that, at the veryleast, this is an issue for both parties. The school’s official position is that within alearning community it is perfectly acceptable for teachers to admit to their ignorance,however, there is a clear difference between children accepting that the teachercannot know everything and children having little or no respect for the teacher’slevel of competence. In this particular case, the children do respect the teacher’sgeneral competence but, in one of the other schools, this was emphatically not so.Unfortunately, a loss of confidence on the part of both the teacher and the pupils candistort the dynamics of the learning situation and hinder ICT integration into thecurriculum. Further resources devoted to staff development would therefore seem tobe a priority for the future. It would increase teachers’ confidence and mightencourage them to give children greater freedom in deciding which programs to usefor which tasks. Such an increase in flexibility would have the major benefit ofencouraging children further down the road of independent learning.

Independent learningOne of the interesting features to emerge from the analysis of the transcripts was thatsolving the problems of using software encourages independence, even at Year 2.The normal reaction of pupils of this age is to ask the teacher or the classroomassistant, but, when the teacher asked what they would do if such help wasn’tavailable, this was one of the responses:

17 Well you could read more and just try more things. You think and then if that’s not rightyou try to do another one and eventually you might come upon something that is ok to do.

(pupil aged 7)

There were also comments from two other Year 2 pupils which showed that theywere strongly motivated to extend their competence by exploring what computerscould do for them:

1 Teacher: What about in school as well which when do you think the computers help youlearn in school?

2 When you go on it a lot well you learn how to find out more things.3 I’ve just learnt how to find out how to get on the Web sites.4 Teacher: Right (pupil aged 7)

Such comments were relatively few in Year 2, but more common in Year 5. In thefollowing extract, the issue is how pupils find out how to use programs that theteacher has not explicitly introduced to them. The pupils’ responses show just howindependent some of them have become:

10 Teacher: So what other ways have you learnt because I haven’t shown you every singleprogram on the computer have I? and yet there’s lots of programs you can use that wedon’t that I haven’t gone through and said ‘Right you have to do this and then you have todo this.

11 You just have to click round.12 Yes, you just have to look for programs that are useful so if you see a name that you think

‘That might help me’ then you can go on that.13 Teacher: But how would you use it, how would you know how to use it if you’d never

been on it before? You say that you click round, what do you mean by that?14 Well it’s, there’s things that look like they could be useful like…at first I didn’t know

how to use border art on Publisher so I looked for lines. At first I got bullet points but thenI found lines. (pupil aged 10)

The question, then, would appear to be how to devise flexible strategies that enablepupils to explore software constructively and help reduce dependence on the teacher.Online help, perhaps in the form of help files related to specific tasks and availableon the school network, could be one part of the answer.

288 T.A. Goodison


Classroom instructionThere was a good deal of evidence from the Year 2 pupils that one of the obstaclesto using computers was the difficulty they had in using the keyboard and the mouse.This was one of the reasons why they preferred using the interactive whiteboard:

9 Well I like it because the letters on the keyboards are quite, they’re bigger and you canactually see them better than you can on a computer and it, I think it’s quite good becausewhen because you sometimes you’re quite learning on the Smartboard because thenyou’re learning how to use the pen and stuff and on it it’s like really big and I think it’sreally great when it’s really big because you can see more stuff and it’s just like in youreye. (pupil aged 7)

The visibility of the board, and the directness of the pupils’ interface with it, usingeither a finger or a pen, are indications that the removal of the mouse and thekeyboard from systems for use by young children will represent considerable time-saving, and a potential learning gain, for all concerned. At the moment, children haveto learn to write and also, within the same time-frame, how to use a keyboard andmouse. In this respect, if no other, the Alliance for Childhood’s (2000) concernsseem well placed. An interface which allows them to write on the computer screenjust as they write on paper will free them to concentrate on content and they will beable to postpone the acquisition of keyboard skills until their handwriting has beenperfected. The Smartboard anticipates this development to some extent and thepupils’ enthusiastic reactions to its use demonstrates what a significant step forwardit represents.

But the ease of use of the Smartboard was not its only positive feature from thechildren’s viewpoint. One of the younger pupils sees it as an aid to learning how touse programs:

13 Teacher: What about you, Bethany?14 I like the Smartboard best.15 Teacher: You like the Smartboard. Why?16 Because you can drag the things and sometimes you can tell us what to do on the

computer because it goes on the computer too. It’s like a computer but bigger. (aged 7)

The way in which this school uses interactive whiteboards, in almost every subjectand almost every lesson, allows children to observe the manipulation of the operatingsystem, the main applications and the network structure on a routine basis, so thatwhen they come to use the computers in class (two hours per week, per pupil, only)they are fully aware of what needs to be done. The teachers have all observed theprocess of accelerated learning which results (‘the actual speed that children learnhow to use the computer from using the Smartboard is phenomenal really’) but whatthey did not anticipate was the feeling of confidence and security which using thewhiteboard can produce, as explained by one Year 5 pupil:

1 Teacher: When do you think using a computer in class helps you learn the most?2 I think when we’re doing a class thing together because you get to find out all different

things about what you can use on the computer whereas when you’re on your own youdon’t think you think ‘Oh I’ve never seen that program before if I click on it I might getinto trouble, it might be something that I’m that I’m not meant to go on’, but when you’reon the computer together teachers can tell you whether you’re allowed to go on it and youcan find out new things. (pupil aged 10)

Computers as toolsThe school’s philosophy is that computers are a tool like any other and suitable forparticular types of task:

It is our aim that children should turn to the use of a computer as naturally and easilyas a pencil and paper and learn to assess where this is the best tool for the job, as doadults. (Internal ICT Development Plan, 2000)



It was interesting to note how far the children had internalised this view with respectto individual software packages. At Year 2 level, children often failed to realise thatthe functions available within one software package were not unique to that package,but this was not true of all of them, as the interjection at 4 demonstrates:

1 Teacher: What about you Bethany, what do you like writing?2 PUBLISHER, because you can change the colours and you can change the font.3 Teacher: Right. Do you like doing anything else?4 You can change fonts on nearly anything. (pupil aged 7)

By Year 5, the idea of fitness for purpose seems to have taken root for some pupils.Here is an exchange of views between one pupil who thinks WORD is better forwriting stories and another who champions PUBLISHER. The point of interest is at5, where the child implicitly rebukes his classmate for not realising the difference infunction between the two packages:

1 I think if you’re writing a story you’d be better off using WORD.2 Teacher: Why? What are the differences?3 Well, on WORD you don’t actually have to put in all the text boxes and everything,

they’re already there and you’ve all, it’s made for writing so if you were doing a piece ofwriting you’d be better off using that.

4 PUBLISHER because that’s what’s designed to…5 Yes but that’s designed for publishing… (pupil aged 10)

An exchange on very much the same lines occurs with regard to design packages.The key phrase at 7 is ‘it depends what you’re doing’:

1 Teacher: What about if you were doing art or design or something like that? What wouldyou use for that?

2 You could use LOGO or there’s PRIMARY DESIGN.3 Teacher: Which do you think is best then?4 LOGO.5 Teacher: Why?6 You have to design a lot more. It teaches you how to design and everything. You can see

what you’re doing and it actually draws…7 I think it depends what you’re doing. If you’re actually designing something you’re going

to make then using LOGO would be pretty hard because that’s like made for drawing. (pupil aged 10)

From a general educational perspective, it is highly desirable for children to developthis kind of discernment based on the principle of fitness for purpose, but it has to besaid that few of the children interviewed had such a sophisticated view of thesoftware choices available to them at school. Indeed, as one of the teachers observed,it would appear that they tended to adopt a rather conservative approach, continuingto use a piece of software simply because of their familiarity with it, irrespective ofother possibilities. Interestingly, however, most pupils showed themselves to be infavour of using more fully featured software products when they had the opportunityto do so, and not simply for the sake of novelty, but rather because of the additionalpossibilities that it offered them. So the pupil motivation necessary to support acomparative approach would seem to be present:

7 Teacher: Right, OK. Which would be your favourite?8 PUBLISHER.9 Teacher: PUBLISHER. Why PUBLISHER?10 Because you can do borders but you can’t on I CAN WRITE.11 Teacher: Right, so you like the borders as well? What about you Callum, what would you

choose to write?12 PUBLISHER.13 Teacher: Why?14 Because you can put all pictures in borders and you can change the style of the writing.

(pupil aged 7)

This discussion opens up the question of how the school’s policy on fitness forpurpose (with regard to ICT), could be more thoroughly assimilated by the pupils

290 T.A. Goodison


themselves and so help develop their metacognitive awareness, a key element insuccessful learning (Bransford et al., 2000). One way forward might be to focus onhow different software packages implement basic functions such as text. An obviousexample, drawn from comments made by the pupils themselves, would be tocompare explicitly how WORD treats text as opposed to PUBLISHER and todemonstrate the differences practically by setting appropriate tasks. The sameprinciple could apply to graphics packages. The evidence of the transcripts suggeststhat if this exercise was conducted via the Smartboard, pupils would be highlyreceptive to the message.

Assessing productivity

In their remarks on computers and learning, very few children gave the impressionthat they felt that computers made them in any way more productive. There areseveral reasons why this should be so. At Key Stage 1, children find it difficult tocome to terms with keyboard and mouse and, at Key Stage 2, they are having tocome to terms with increasingly complex software which, in itself, tends to hinderproductivity. On another level, they lack some of the cognitive abilities of adults andso cannot realise the gains in productivity that adults normally associate withcomputers, for example, the ease with which long texts can be re-designed and re-focused during the editing process. They also lack the breadth of knowledge andself-awareness that underpin adults’ abilities to synthesise information from differentsources and use file management techniques to organise it effectively.

Despite these limitations, however, children are aware that some productivitygains can be made. For children having trouble with handwriting, the computer canhelp them overcome a barrier to self-expression. This child writes faster on thecomputer and feels a real sense of achievement:

3 Teacher: and what, can you think of anything you’ve done at school that’s really helpedyou learn, on the computer?

4 Writing on the computer and stuff because before, we were doing our plan work and Iwrote on the computer and it helped me write on the computer because before I wrote soslow it’s hard it takes ages but now I’m learning to write fast. (pupil aged 7)

The reverse is true, naturally, for those children with good handwriting skills whofind difficulty in mastering the keyboard:

1 Teacher: What about if I said ‘Well today we’re going to write’, would that be easier tolearn do you think or not as easy?

2 Not as easy.3 Not as easy because sometimes you can’t find the letters on the keyboard.4 Teacher: So you think sometimes writing on the computer’s harder because you can’t

find the letters?5 Yes and it doesn’t make it go that quick and you don’t have that sentence there. (aged 7)

By contrast, in maths, where keyboard skills are not so important, some pupilsobserved that they could make real productivity gains through using computers:

6 I agree with Sarah as well about maths because when you’re doing it on the computer, juston one of the original computers, well when you’re doing it on your work and then ifyou’ve got something that you’ve written down and you’ve written down a lot, a wholepage, and then you’ve done it all wrong and you have to start again whereas on thecomputer you can when you do something, say you did a whole page wrong then youcould just easily get it all off or alter it. (pupil aged 10)

Finally, the complexity of the software being used in Year 5 (Microsoft Office) wasthe source of two particularly interesting interventions. Some pupils saw thiscomplexity as a barrier to task completion rather than an aid to productivity andpreferred using paper and pencil:



2 You know when you showed us to do that grid thing and then you had to go on to allthese programs to try to find what you wanted and then the border and everything andthen the wrap lines to go round the grid so people could see it and it took a long time butwhereas if you’re on paper you just get a ruler and draw to what you want. (aged 10)

But even pupils who had acquired considerable skill in manipulating the softwaresometimes saw the computer not so much as an aid to productivity as a distractionfrom the task itself:

16 You tend to focus more on your presentation than what you’re actually of your work thanwhat you’re actually working on if you use computers because by hand you can’t really, itwould take you most of the time you’ve got to put a border on but on a computer you canjust do that quickly so you tend to think more about that.

17 Teacher: So that tends to be your first priority rather than actually the quality of yourwriting sometimes.

18 From our point of view you just get obsessive about presentation and just…19 Teacher: Yes, that’s true as well. (pupil aged 10)

So those pupils who are highly competent become engaged with the software ratherthan the learning task and those less competent struggle and become frustrated: inneither case a productive learning outcome. This highlights the difficulty andcomplexity of giving actual substance to the notion that computers are just anothertool to be used where appropriate. There is nothing wrong with the principle (indeed,it is highly desirable) but its adoption entails a great deal of careful planning.

Evaluating the quality of learning

If pupils are equivocal about computers helping productivity, they are far morepositive on the issue of how computers enhance the quality of learning. Here is oneextract, of several, that shows how some software can make learning both excitingand challenging:

3 Teacher: You like Number Snake do you? Why do you like Number Snake?4 Because when we do it, when you like press Go it’s really exciting because you don’t

know which number it’s going to land on and if it sometimes it gets really hard and youget to think about it. It’s quite nice.

5 Teacher: So you like thinking about it do you? You like it when it’s a bit morechallenging? (pupil aged 7)

In line with the evidence provided by Mann et al. (2000), fun and enjoyment arehighly valued:

10 I know one of the programs that helped me learn a bit how to read.11 Teacher: What’s that one?12 Green Eggs and Ham.13 Teacher: Oh, so you liked Green Eggs and Ham did you?14 Yes and it makes me mostly laugh a lot.15 Teacher: So was that something that was good, that you laughed at it? and it helped you

read did it? How did it help you read?16 It sometimes has some words that I don’t really know and instead of me reading it they

read it out for me. (pupil aged 7)

as are rapid feedback and interactivity:9 Teacher: Why are they good? Why do you think those are good?10 Because you can change it a lot and then…11 . . . they tick if you’re right or say if you’re wrong.12 Teacher: So the computer marks your work for you straight away and you get some

feedback . . . What about the ATM Number stuff the place value things, what do youthink of those?

13 They’re good they teach you a lot.14 Yes because they’re like how to, some of them talk to you as well.15 Teacher: and you get some feedback from the computer again.16 (All) Yes.17 Teacher: Do you like that when the computer tells you whether you’re right or wrong?18 Yes, otherwise you’re sat there wondering. (pupil aged 10)

292 T.A. Goodison


Conversely, overuse of the same programs leads to de-motivation and boredom:3 Teacher: What don’t you like using?4 I don’t really like using Smart Notebook.5 Teacher: Why’s that?6 Because we mostly go on it lots and lots for maths.7 Teacher: Right, so you mean you’d rather not use it because you get fed up of it?8 Yes.9 Teacher: Right. What do you get fed up of doing on it?10 Mostly in maths. (pupil aged 10)

None of these reactions are in any way surprising, but what they imply is quitesignificant, namely that since children have different interests and aptitudes, therange of good quality, interactive software should be as broad as possible and pupilsshould have the freedom to select which they prefer, with teacher guidance of course.For example, although some children look for fun and stimulation, others value morethe opportunity to practise basic skills:

2 Teacher: How do you think Counter helps you learn?3 Because you can click on start-up and you can count in fours backwards or threes

counter…4 Teacher: Could you not do that without a computer?5 Well you can’t click on start-up and do what you wanted to do you, you’d just have to

think of it.6 Teacher: Right so do you think the computer helps you learn that even though you could

do it without the computer?7 Yes it helps you most because when you can count with all the hours and things at the top

there’s one that can go quick and there’s one that you can press each time…8 Teacher: So you can still guess what the number’s going to be?9 Yes and there is one that goes right back to the start. (pupil aged 7)

This is just one practical illustration of ICT helping teachers to adopt the role offacilitators.

As far as the Internet is concerned, there is no doubt whatsoever that thesechildren respond positively to the opportunity to access information via the Web:

1 Teacher: How do using the computers help you learn? If we took all the computers out ofschool, do you think you would learn as well as you do now?

2 (Together) No.3 Because there’s all of the…you can get all the information off the Internet or Internet

Odyssey and you don’t need…you don’t get the opportunity if you don’t have acomputer…because if you don’t have a computer you have to find it out from books andstuff like that and it’s mainly quicker to use the Internet. (pupil aged 10)

But they are also well aware of its disadvantages. Here is an extract which shows thechildren divided between on the one hand the range of information sources on theWeb and the difficulty of finding what they want and, on the other, a product likeGranada’s Internet Odyssey which provides relevant information more quickly butonly in limited quantity:

1 Teacher: What about if I’d asked you to perhaps find out about something for our historywork what would you, what would your preference be?

2 Use the Internet.3 Teacher: You’d use the Internet.4 Use of the Internet or Internet Odyssey.5 Teacher: Which one do you think’s best?6 I’d say the Internet because on Internet Odyssey there’s just a kind of list on the side

where you can…it’s a better search engine7 There is more on the Internet but it’s a, but there’s a thing of where you’re more likely to

find more.8 On Internet Odyssey I think you’re pushed to the area that you can use because it gives

you, say you want World War 2 like what we’re doing now, you can just click on it andyou know that you’ll get World War 2 but on the Internet it’s a variety of pages and youcan’t always guarantee that you’ll get what you want. (pupil aged 10)



Social learning

The responses from the younger children to the question on interactive whiteboardstended to concentrate on issues relating to the ease of use of the interface (theopportunity to interact directly with the computer by means of a finger or a pen andits high visibility) rather than the impact that interactive whiteboard technology hason the learning context. The older children, however, seem to have become aware ofa range of effects that have to do with the social dimension of learning. For example,there are a number of comments that show an awareness of the capabilities of thetechnology from the teacher’s perspective. In the following extract the pupils show asophisticated awareness of the Smartboard’s ability to function, from the teacher’sperspective, as an efficient means of deriving feedback from the class:

22 Teacher: Do you like the fact that when we use the Smartboard then it’s sharing ideas aswell?

23 (All) Yes.24 Because then you can see what people know already about something25 You can learn…26 . . . because if they do work you’ve got to check about 37 pieces of work but when you’re

on the Smartboard you can let people who aren’t quite sure have a go on it so everyonecan see what they need to teach them, instead of just looking at the work because youwon’t know anything if you’re, if they’re on their own, if they’re doing it as a class pieceof work you can see what everyone knows and doesn’t know.

(pupil aged 10)

Another group was able to distinguish between work in pairs and group work in thecontext of ICT. Work in pairs, one of them suggests, simply does not have the sameeffect as group work and, what is more, the Smartboard makes the latter much easier:

3 I think it’s (the Smartboard) a lot better for group work because as a group you couldeither crowd round one computer and you’d have a disaster then or you could split up intopairs and then you wouldn’t get the effect of being in a group. But on the Smartboard youcan work as a group on it. (pupil aged 10)

As far as whole class teaching is concerned, there were a number of very perceptivecomments made about the social dynamics of learning using this technology.Consider this extract which begins with a statement revealing the degree of solidarityexisting within the class (‘no-one has to worry about anyone else not seeing becauseit’s all there’) and continues with the assertion that the Smartboard, as used in thisschool, allows them to learn by making mistakes (‘they learn a lot from going upand just doing what they think not having like someone telling them’):

9 You know like Sarah said that people used to crowd round the computer, when we didthat then other children couldn’t see really and you didn’t really learn much but when theSmartboard’s there no-one has to worry about anyone else not seeing because it’s all thereand also you ask some of the children to go up they learn a lot from going up and justdoing what they think not having like someone telling them, if they do a mistake andsomeone tells them, that’s good but like it they learn a lot from if someone asks them togo up and they do what they think and if it’s wrong then they’ve just learnt a new thingbecause then they know that if it’s wrong they don’t do that what they did again.

(pupil aged 10)

The benefits of being allowed to go up to the Smartboard and think in public, as itwere, is seen by this pupil (17) as an indispensable aid to learning:

16 Sometimes she feels very shy to go up because I think she but she’s got to really try,you’ve got to try to do some sums because you might get it wrong, you might get it rightbut you think I’m going to get this wrong when you do it but you might get it right.

17 Yes, because she’s never going to learn unless she does go up. (pupil aged 10)

The children also approve of the teacher abandoning her role as an authority andadopting that of a facilitator. The comment at (15) reveals an awareness of thebenefits of collaboration that the technology has put within the reach of the class:

294 T.A. Goodison


10 Teacher: Who tells them if it’s wrong if they’re working on the Smartboard? Who’s theperson, who well who out of the class tells them most if they’re wrong do you think?

11 The people in the class because the teacher doesn’t actually point out that it’s wrong it’sthe people that tell you it’s wrong because they point it out already so it’s pretty…

12 Teacher: Do you think it’s a good thing?13 Yes.14 Teacher: Why? Why is it better than perhaps me saying ‘You’ve done that wrong, think

about it again’?15 Because it’s showing that the people are working it out and they’re helping you in way, so

it shows that they’re actually watching you. (pupil aged 10)

These responses suggest that not only has the Smartboard boosted learning bymaking it a more collective experience, but it has also promoted quite a sophisticatedlevel of metacognitive reflection.

Conclusions

Although this was a small-scale survey of pupil perceptions of ICT in just one UKschool, the results indicate that evidence of this type can provide valuable insightsinto the process of ICT integration into the curriculum. Incorporating teachers intothe research design has the advantage of aiding the recall of particular learningepisodes which, with children of this age, are a fertile ground for insights into theteaching and learning dynamic. Of course, many contributions from the childrenprove to be uninformative, irrelevant or even uninterpretable, but as this paper hasshown, some contributions are highly pertinent to current pedagogical concerns, forexample the contribution that ICT can make to the promotion of independentlearning.

Despite the fact that many of the most illuminating contributions came from theolder children, it was intriguing to observe that even those as young as seven were attimes capable of articulating instructive insights into their own learning processes.Perhaps one of the best examples of this comes from the pupil who knows what to dowhen the teacher is not there to help with a software problem:

Well you could read more and just try more things. You think and then if that’s not right you tryto do another one and eventually you might come upon something that is OK to do.

The relative infrequency of such insights, compared to the 10 year olds, does notdetract from their pedagogical significance.

This study also raises a number of specific issues with regard to those primaryschools in the UK that are already well down the road of ICT integration.• Teachers need more time to acquire greater competence in a broad range of

applications in order to extend into the domain of ICT the mutual trust that existsbetween themselves and their pupils.

• If ICT is indeed an effective way of promoting independent learning and problemsolving, it would be worthwhile to find ways of allowing children to exploresoftware for themselves in a structured, supportive environment.

• The acquisition of hardware which can bring clear learning gains (in this school,interactive whiteboards) places a significant burden on those staff charged withmaintaining a watching brief on emerging technologies and selecting those thatwill benefit the school most.

• The idea of particular software tools being suited to particular tasks hasimportant implications for the development of pupils’ metacognitive awareness.It also demands a broader and deeper knowledge of software on the part of thestaff and a good deal of creativity in designing learning situations where toolsand tasks are effectively matched.



• The potential of the Web as a learning tool has still to be fully developed and sohas its impact, as a medium, upon key skills such as literacy. Teachers in thislocal authority, despite having an excellent broadband network at their disposal,are not using it to communicate across school boundaries.

• This school has a good fit between its teaching and learning policy and its use ofICT. Educational criteria exist which determine the hardware and software thatwill be acquired. The use of the technology, in its turn, opens up newperspectives on how the school’s fundamental goals can be achieved, witness thestaff’s conviction that interactive whiteboards have transformed their teaching.

There are also a few more general issues:• Computers can make a useful contribution to learning in many diverse ways. The

issue is how to find the best tools (software and hardware) and how to matchthem to different types of task so as to develop, for example, independentlearning and metacognitive awareness. This process is taking place at a time ofconstant technological change that makes a difficult task even harder.

• The presence of ICT in the home (almost universal in this school) should makethe task of ICT integration easier once teachers have the confidence to build onthe expertise that children develop at home.

• The sophistication of the responses of some of the children interviewed showshow much they have to offer to the process of building a learning community.The research allowed staff in the school to gain insights into pupils’ perceptions,but teachers need time to conduct their own action research and outsideassistance can be very valuable in giving this work a structure and a direction.

References

Alliance for Childhood (2000) Fool’s Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood.http://www.allianceforchildhood.net/

BECTa (2000) Preliminary Report for the DfEE on the Relationship Between ICT andPrimary School Standards. http://www.becta.org.uk/news/reports/contents.html

BECTa (2001) Primary Schools of the Future – Achieving Today. http://www.becta.org.uk/Bransford, J.D., Donovan, S.M. & Pellegrino, J.W. (eds.) (2000) How people Learn: Brain,

Mind, Experience and School. National Academy Press, Washington DC.Mann, D., Shakeshaft, C., Kottkamp, R. & Becker, J. (2000) Playing to Learn.

http://electronic-school.com/2000/09/0900f4.htmlShotter, J. (1984) Social Accountability and Selfhood. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.Silverman, D. (1973) Interview Talk: Bringing off a Research Interview. Sociology, 7, 31–48.

Conference announcementsInternational Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2002)

Learning communities on the Internet - pedagogy in implementation3-6 December 2002, Auckland, New ZealandFor more information see: http://icce2002.massey.ac.nz

International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2003)The ‘Second Wave’ of ICT in Education: from facilitating teaching and learning toengendering education reform

December 2003, Hong Kong

Documents

Learning with ICT at primary level: pupils' perceptions