Abstract:

This work aims to analyze the uses of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) devices, ICT-mediated activities in which undergraduates participate, the importance of ICT in learning and their relationship to the different areas of college careers studied. From the perspective of social constructivists and learning as situated, we consider ICT as cultural artefacts present in the social practices which, by their characteristics, expand learning opportunities, as they not only provide fast access to information and communication, but also integrate a set of tools that support the individual in moving their learning interests from one context to another. An intentional non-probabilistic sample consisting of 400 undergraduates from a Brazilian public university participated in the study, with an average age of 25 (SD=6,6), with 50% enrolled in technical degrees (Systems of Information and Computational Sciences) and the other half in different college degrees of humanities (Psychology, Pedagogy, Philosophy, History and Teaching of Language) from modalities of face-to-face teaching and distance education. The data was collected through a structured instrument elaborated from three dimensions: “the use of digital information and communication technologies (DICT)”, “DICT-mediated activities in which the undergraduates participate” and “DICT as tools for learning”. In the data analysis, the relative frequency was calculated for the indicators of each dimension included in the questionnaire and statistical techniques such as Chi-square and Multivariate analysis were used to observe the relationships among them as well as the importance of ICT in undergraduate learning across different college degrees. The statistical tests were done with the support of the software SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, v. 20). The results show the comparison between two subsamples consisting of undergraduates from humanities and technical degrees with regards to the ICT devices most frequently used by undergraduates of different degrees, the activities carried out with the support of these technologies, the contexts in which they take place, the content learned, the emotions associated with the activities and their evaluation of the use of ICT for learning. The statistical tests suggest differences with regards to the significance of the relationships among the indicators of each dimension analyzed and the variable area of college degrees, although, in both subsamples, we can observe that: smartphones, laptops and desktop computers are the most commonly used devices; home and university stand out as the principal contexts of the use of ICT; and undergraduates consider learning through participation in ICT-mediated activities in several contexts. In addition, they associate positive emotions with most of them and, among the contents learned, academic and cultural contents predominate.

Keywords:

Mediated activities, Information and communication technologies, Learning, Undergraduates.