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Barbara Engels / Ruth Maria Schüler IW-Trends No. 2 17. June 2020 Digital Education?: How Young People Learn and Schools Teach

Young people spend a lot of time online, a fact which influences how they learn and follow political and economic developments. This empirical study based on a survey conducted as part of the JUNIOR project examines how young people in Germany use the Internet for learning, focusing particularly on their criteria for selecting videos for educational and information purposes.

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How Young People Learn and Schools Teach
Barbara Engels / Ruth Maria Schüler IW-Trends No. 2 17. June 2020

Digital Education?: How Young People Learn and Schools Teach

IW-Trends

German Economic Institute (IW) German Economic Institute (IW)

Young people spend a lot of time online, a fact which influences how they learn and follow political and economic developments. This empirical study based on a survey conducted as part of the JUNIOR project examines how young people in Germany use the Internet for learning, focusing particularly on their criteria for selecting videos for educational and information purposes.

The results show that personal networks are the most important source of video recommendations, while boys are more strongly influenced than girls by the number of times a video has been viewed and the video platform’s suggestions. This shows the importance of digital, and especially media, literacy in ensuring that teenagers have the information necessary to select videos from trusted sources and with fact-based content. Additionally, the study uses 2018 PISA data to analyse the extent to which students’ online behaviour at home is discussed in school lessons and how well they are taught to deal confidently with digital media. This two-pronged analysis compares the demand and supply sides of digital teaching. The resulting policy recommendations, such as teaching media skills to both students and teachers, are given additional urgency by recent experience with digital learning during the Corona crisis.

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How Young People Learn and Schools Teach
Barbara Engels / Ruth Maria Schüler IW-Trends No. 2 17. June 2020

Barbara Engels / Ruth Maria Schüler: Bildung digital? - Wie Jugendliche lernen und Schulen lehren

IW-Trends

German Economic Institute (IW) German Economic Institute (IW)

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A Challenge for the German Education System
Christina Anger / Axel Plünnecke IW-Analyse No. 140 21. January 2021

Equality of Educational Opportunity: A Challenge for the German Education System

Germany has been making good progress towards achieving equality of opportunity in its education system. Latterly, however, it has become clear that the correlation between socio-economic background and educational success is again becoming more pronounced, a ...

IW

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Wido Geis-Thöne IW-Report No. 30 26. June 2020

Motivation to learn and pleasure in school

With the sharp reduction in classroom teaching in the context of the Corona pandemic, students' own initiative in practising the school material has become much more important for their competence development.

IW

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