TOYS FOR THE BOYS, TOOLS FOR THE GIRLS? GENDER AND MEDIA USAGE PATTERNS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Abstract
Since the introduction of digital media the fear of women being left out of the virtual world is expressed in
various contexts. With the aim to establish if these gender differences still exist and, if they do, what form
they take this paper investigates the use of digital media by male and female higher education students. 1,327
students enrolled at German higher education institutions completed an online questionnaire concerning
the digital devices that they own or have access to, and their usage of media and e-learning tools and services
for their learning. Using multivariate analysis, the study indicates that male students show higher acceptance
values for more general web tools higher than female students, but when it comes to e-learning related tools
women show higher acceptance values for a lot more different tools and services than men. The findings
indicate that differences in media usage patterns between male and female students are not a question of
having access, but of the attitude toward and the reasons for using digital media, and that the mentioned fear
of women being left out did not come true.
Keywords
Gender differences, Media usage behaviour, Digital technology, Digital media, Higher education
References
- Grosch, M. (2014). About Student’s Media Use for Learning in Tertiary Education Influence factores and Structures of Usage Behavior. International Journal on E-Learning, 13(4), 415–440.