家庭互联网接入与城乡初中生的认知能力差距

Home Internet Access and Urban-Rural Cognition Gap of Middle School Students

基于中国教育追踪调查基线数据,本文研究了家庭的互联网接入对城乡初中生认知能力差距的影响。研究发现:城乡初中生在认知能力和家庭互联网接入率上均存在明显差距;在控制其他因素的情况下,OLS回归和PSM估计发现家庭互联网接入可以显著预测学生的认知能力;互联网接入对认知能力的影响效应不存在家庭社会经济背景之间的异质性,但是对城市户籍学生体现得更明显,这可能是因为城市学生的认知能力本身较高,更倾向于将互联网作为信息搜索和学习的手段;Oaxaca-Blinder差异分解表明,家庭互联网接入这一因素可以解释城乡学生认知差距的57%左右,并且这种影响主要来自两者在互联网使用回报率上的差异。通过教育信息化促进教育公平,应当从以下两方面努力:将教育信息化建设和应用的场域从学校扩展到家庭,关注学生在家庭的信息技术应用环境;将教育信息化建设的重点从硬件和平台建设转向关注学生的信息技术使用技能和信息素养。

Based on the China Education Panel Survey baseline data, this study examines the influence of home internet access on urban-rural cognition gap of middle school students. The results show that there is significant difference in both cognitive abilities and home internet access rate between urban and rural middle school students. When controlling for other factors, OLS regression and PSM estimation indicate that home internet access predicts students’ cognitive abilities at a statistically significant level. While there exists no heterogeneous effect of home internet access on cognitive abilities among students with various family socio-economic backgrounds, this effect is more obvious for urban students. This may be because urban students who own high level of cognitive abilities are more likely to use internet as an approach to information searching and learning. Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition results suggests that home internet access accounts for 57% of urban-rural cognition gap of students and this is mainly due to the difference in the rate of return on internet use between urban and rural students. To promote education equity through education informatization, efforts should be made in the following two aspects: Expanding the field of construction and application of education informatization from schools to families and paying attention to information technology application environment of students at home. In addition, turning the focus of education informatization construction from hardware and platform to students’ skills and literacy development of information technology.