Perceptions of the Internet and Education: A Study with Physics Education Website Users

Abstract

The use of the web in teaching and learning and research studies on this issue are increasingly common in science education. In most of these studies, teachers’ and students’ perceptions of and their attitudes toward the specific web-assisted/based learning activities and the effects of these activities on their achievement and attitudes have been investigated. In the current study, the researcher placed emphasis on the perceptions about physics education related websites on the Internet among users of these sites using a causalcomparative research design. The purpose of the current study was to have detailed information on web users’ preferences and perceptions on the use of the web and to see if demographics are responsible for differences on web users’ perceptions on the use of web in physics education. In order to achieve this aim, an online instrument, Perceptions of the Internet and Education Scale, was developed by the author and the data collected using this instrument. The statistical analyses were carried out with the data from 340 web-users of a physics education related website. The results of the study showed that web users’ gender, occupation, and time spent on the Internet were factors that explained the changes in the perceptions of physics education web users. However, web users’ age and past experiences with the Internet were not causes of that difference