Abstract:

Rapid development and usage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) change our everyday life. ICTs have a significant role in fostering socio and economic development. In addition, the development of ICTs enhances competitive advantage, which reflects in higher productivity, efficiency, and innovation activity. Skilled and well-trained people are the most important factor in the knowledge economy, and continuous education presents the main driver of the company’s success. Improvements in ICTs, new applications and software, foster development of e-skills, information literacy, and quality of education process. Therefore, lifelong learning becomes needed as a source of personal and company competitiveness. Dynamic and technology-rich environments that improve the innovative learning processes, such as e-learning has a strong potential in supporting traditional teaching methods, improving existing educational processes, and enable lifelong learning. Benefits such as the absence of time and space limitations, offer participants the possibility to learn when they can and where they can be supported with the ICTs infrastructure.

In this paper, the authors investigate differences among individuals in European countries who use the Internet for different aspects of e-learning. The goal of the paper is to investigate the level of the digital divide between the European countries, according to the usage of e-learning by the individuals with different background (living in a household with the Internet or broadband access, living in an urban or rural area, living in a household with income in different quartiles). Data were extracted from the Eurostat database regarding e-learning activities of individuals in the year 2017. Following variables were used:
(i) doing an online course,
(ii) online learning materials,
(iii) communication with instructors or students using educational websites,
(iv) any of the learning activities.

Cluster analysis is conducted in order to compare individuals according
(i) individuals living in a household with income in different quartiles,
(ii) individuals living in urban or rural areas,
(iii) individuals living in a household with the Internet or broadband access. We also compare the GDP per capita across identified clusters.

Existing scientific research showed that usage of different aspects of ICTs differs in particular countries, which leads to a digital divide between developed and developing countries. Our findings confirmed that developed countries, especially Scandinavian countries, are leaders in the usage of e-learning. Furthermore, there are significant differences among individuals from rural or urban areas. Results indicate that European leaders should invest more efforts in decreasing the digital divide among countries and in increasing usage of e-learning among individuals, but with the specific accent to the following groups:
(i) households with the lower income;
(ii) households in rural areas, and
(iii) households without the broadband Internet access.

Keywords:

e-learning, Internet, education, Europe, Eurostat, cluster analysis.