The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's (IEA) mission is to enhance knowledge about education systems worldwide, and to provide high-quality data that will support education reform and lead to better teaching and learning in schools. In pursuit of this aim, it conducts, and reports on, major studies of student…

While much of the e-learning development at universities in the past 15 years has been on institutionally supported Learning Management Systems (LMSs), alternative educational technologies are being taken up following the rapid growth in emerging technologies, including social networking sites (SNSs). While teachers may choose educational…

Few contemporary pre-service teachers would have completed their schooling with the extensive aid of computers. Yet, classroom use of information and communication technology (ICT) is now ubiquitous in much of the world. Today's pre-service teachers are the "cusp generation" who, at a unique moment in history, straddle the two worlds of…

Teacher education graduates need appropriate levels of confidence and capabilities in relation to technological knowledge (TK) as a basis for having technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) to meet the challenges of learning and teaching in the 21st century. However, it should not be assumed that tomorrow's teachers enter the profession…

The research discussed in this article is based on an Australian Research Council-funded study carried out over three years (2005-2007) in three states in Australia. The study sought to understand students' experiences and decisions at secondary school to ascertain why few girls choose to enter tertiary-level Communication and Information…

Research has shown that girls do not participate as much as boys in Information Technology (IT) in the senior years of high school. Despite research in the 1990s which identified the under-representation of girls in IT, the same pattern still continues. In addition, the complex reasons for this gender divide, and how to counter it, remain unclear.…

A review of the literature about student use of ICT and the impact of ICT use on learning reveals a complexity of rationales and terminology that underwrite ICT initiatives; various dimensions and stages of integration; inherent methodological difficulties; obstacles to integration such as teacher ICT confidence, expertise and beliefs about the…

This paper reports on an investigation into first year students' perceptions of IT as a career. There are many stereotypes of the typical IT professional. These stereotypes are often depicted in the media and affect students' perceptions of the career and whether they should study IT or not. An exploratory study into male and female first year…

Females are under-represented in education, training and employment in the area of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Research shows that girls are tuning out to ICTs in school and they have a low participation rate in ICT related tertiary study and employment. The Tech Savvy report by the American Association of University Women (2000)…

Findings from a survey administered to large numbers of grade 7-10 students are presented in this paper. The focus is on the students' attitudes towards the use of computers for the learning of mathematics. Background information was also gathered which allowed the students' responses to be analysed by a range of equity factors--gender, ethnicity,…