Vocational teaching: use of information and communication technologies by students outside the school context

This article presents the main results of a study about the use that students of the vocational courses in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) make of the technologies outside the school context. This research intends to evaluate the degree of integration of ICT in the lifestyles of the students of vocational courses in the scope of ICT, in order to understand the extent to which ICT enriches, modifies or changes behaviors, learning modes and habits. The methodology used consisted in the application of a questionnaire in the classroom to 314 students from 4 schools, who had a large number of vocational courses in ICT, preferably with three years of secondary school (10th, 11th and 12th grade), which would guarantee greater diversity and accumulated experience and a high number of students to inquire. The questionnaire survey was previously validated by the General Board Direção Geral de Inovação e Desenvolvimento Curricular (DGIDC) and after it was applied the data was treated and analysed with SPSS 19. With the results obtained it was concluded that the preferential context of ICT use by students is at home. Although half of the students report using the computer and the Internet, both for educational and recreational activities, the rest use ICT mainly for leisure activities. Gender analysis shows that girls are less active in using these media for recreational practices than boys, but more active in communicational practices. Students in the most advanced years of schooling assume a more diversified and enriching use of ICT for school purposes, provided by learning the content of their courses. However, the use modalities are still not very enriching, privileging recreational and communicational practices, despite the field of study of their courses. The opportunities and potential of the use of ICT in the study method are not yet used to make a more effective learning, being its use by the activities more common and transversal to other students of different courses, as is the case of online research for essays or downloading worksheets and exercises. Understanding how students use ICT outside the school context makes it possible to verify whether learning about the use of technology in schools is enriching and whether it is transferred to other places outside the school by modifying or changing behavior, learning modes and habits. This is all the more important in view of the fact that vocational courses, in this specific case, courses in the field of ICT, have the main objective of forming skilled labor for the labor market, capable of responding to the requirements of a society of the information and knowledge.