Perspectives of young people and schools

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Digitization also plays a role in education. The topic of digital education has two sides. Young people on one side and schools on the other. How do young people use digital media for education? How do schools deal with this?

Actual data

This has changed with the topic of digital education The German Economic Institute (IW) in its IW-Trends 2/2020 “Digital education? – How young people learn and schools learn” devoted. The topic is important because young people spend a lot of time with digital media every day, including to use it in school. It is therefore also important that young people learn how content provided online can be consumed and evaluated.

In IW trends, the results are a surveywhich within JUNIOR project was carried out, during which it was primarily about the establishment of a student society. Around 2,000 young people between the ages of 14 and 21 took part in the 2019 survey, most of whom (77 percent) had graduated from high school and were interested in topics related to companies and the economy through participation in the JUNIOR project. To shed even more light on the schools side, he also included the IW trend 2018 PISA data consulted.

learning methods

When it comes to illuminating the topic of digital education, the IW trend is the first to address it learning methods preferred by young people. Young people were asked about the best learning method they could use to learn. 42 percent of young people said it would be best if they could help videos learn. Boys gave this answer significantly more often than girls. Another 27 percent named discussion of lessons, another 13 percent texts, just 10 percent learning with parents or friends, another 4 percent other, and just 3 percent podcasts.

The importance of videos as a digital medium for young people as a method of learning is also underlined by the results of other studies. This is how IW manages results and representative survey of the Council for Cultural Education from 2019 onwards. According to this, about half of the users of the “YouTube” platform would say that the available videos are (very) important for school matters. Videos are most often used to review content we don’t understand in class or for homework.

A selection of videos

IW Trends also explored how young people would choose videos in the context of digital education. Selection was considered for learning as well as for obtaining information in the context of economic and political topics. Young people could choose different criteria in the survey and list them from 1 (most important) to 8 (least important). According to IW, the most young people (51.7 percent) ranked first Recommendations from friends. personal networks according to IW, they seem to be the most important criteria for recommending videos. They follow in second place Recommendations from teachers. They are also important Number of likes and views (display) Suggestions from the online platform and The order in which search engine results are displayed I would.

These results were also gender specific broken. Referrals from friends would be #1 for both boys and girls. For boys, the number of likes and views was second, and platform suggestions were third. For girls, recommendations from teachers are second and suggestions from the platform are also third.

Additional statistical tests were used in IW-Trends to determine which of the criteria are particularly important for which pupils. For this purpose, it was determined for which group The probability is high for placing the criterion in position 1. According to IW-Trends, the results of which groups are most likely to classify which criterion as very important were:

Recommendations from friends: boys, high school students, students from 16 years old
Teacher recommendations: Girls, non-gymnasium students and under 16 years of age
Number of likes and views: boys (especially high relevance), not high school students, students from 16
Suggestions from the platform: boys, high school students, students under 16 years old
Order of results in the search engine: girls, high school students, students from 16 years of age

All in all, the use of videos in the digital education of young people is highly relevant.

situation in schools

In order to illuminate the topic of digital education also from the side of schools, the results of the PISA 2018 study are evaluated in the IW report. At the same time, it is clear that digital device and work on them according to students so far little used in school I would. Digital equipment would be most commonly used in science subjects, second in foreign languages, followed by social sciences. If the device was used, it would usually be limited to a maximum of 30 minutes per week.

In relation to the German teacher survey, it appears that these students would ask Use digital devices to prepare lessons. 77 percent said they searched for and placed an order for information related to the topic. Another 67 percent would assign short digital assignments that students could complete in a week. 53 percent would use a digital device to turn in (home)work. Only 10 percent would encourage teachers to write digital content themselves, such as a blog post. It shows that digital content and devices rather to prepare or continue the lesson would be used and not in the class itself.

Topic media literacy and digital competence is part of it too short in class, as only half of teachers reported that they teach young people to critically examine information in terms of its subjectivity. Testing the credibility of a digital resource would teach 65 percent of teachers. IW estimates these results and values as too low to guarantee the quality of digital education and the confident handling of digital things by young people. Adequate teaching of media competence in schools can ultimately also limit the spread of false facts (“fake news”).

The technical equipment of schools taken into account. Above all, there is a lack of fast internet connections in schools, effective online learning platforms, digital teaching devices and qualified technical staff. Problems with suitable software, computing power of digital school devices and pedagogical and technical skills of teachers are decreasing. However, only 57 percent said the latter was sufficient, which could lead to problems, according to IW.

Conclusion and recommendations

At the end of the report, IW draws a conclusion from the results of the IW trend towards digital education and makes recommendations to implement the topic of digital learning well. It is therefore particularly important for boys and students under 16 years of age Understand the algorithms behind platform designs and how their own behavior on the Internet affects them, or what traces on the internet was left behind. However, the same applies to girls and older students, because they respond less to the suggestions of the platforms, but to the order in which the results are presented in the search engine.

Topic media skills in schools it is especially important and should be communicated how to find videos that are of high quality and trustworthy. However, in order to communicate this, Teachers on appropriate media skills Properties. That’s why it’s needed educational concepts and also one exam media skills of students according to IW. In addition, according to IW, teachers would need to continue to work on their digital skills in order to recommend good and useful videos to students and respond to their learning realities. Therefore, according to IW, the topic of digital education and digital teaching must be addressed in teacher training are discussed and emphasized more and more often.

Teaching adequate media skills probably affects not only the young people themselves, but also theirs sewingbecause according to the results, personal recommendations would play the biggest role in choosing videos.

Here you will find IW Trends 2/2020:

Digital education? – How young people learn and how schools teach