A comparison of the attitudes of rural and urban secondary school students towards the use of the internet

Using the Internet for educational purposes is crucial for learning, research, communication and information sharing. However, rural and urban students do not have equal access to the Internet. Conducted in Turkey in the 2010-2011 school year, this study aimed to investigate the attitudes of rural and urban secondary school students towards the use of the Internet. The participants were 225 students, 115 from urban and 110 from rural areas. In this study the causal-comparative research design was used and data were collected using the Scale for Internet Use Attitudes (SIUA) with a five-point Likert-type scale. The SIUA has six subdimensions: “using the Internet in education”, “using the Internet in research”, “using the Internet in social interactions”, “liking the use of the Internet in education”, “using the Internet in communication”, and “using the Internet in information sharing”. The data were analyzed using independent samples t-test in the SPSS software package. The results revealed a significant difference in favor of urban students in the overall scores as well as the scores in the following subscale scores: “using the Internet in social interactions”, “using the Internet in communication”, “using the Internet in information sharing”, and “liking the use of the Internet in education”. No difference was found in the other subdimensions, i.e. using the Internet in education and research. Recommendations were made in the light of these findings