Is the Digital Divide widening or narrowing? New research is needed to answer this question. Such research needs to evaluate the needs of the “have-nots” and provide updated statistics on this continually evolving topic.

Our Project is a survey conducted on 2751 students of two schools in the United States and Vietnam. We aim to provide first-hand information on the digital gap in education between developed and developing countries.

In particular, we aim to answer the following questions:

• Is there a difference in the frequency of computer usage between the students of the two countries?
• Is there a difference in IT skills between the students of the two countries?
• What are some factors that affect how often students use computers?
• Do the students use computers at school for schoolwork?

The survey consists of a questionnaire with 20 multiple choice questions, approved and administered with support from Pinkerton Academy (United States). All students of Pinkerton Academy and students in four classes of Kim Lien High School (Vietnam) were given the questionnaire during class.

One of our team members, an undergraduate in mathematics, analyzed the data using Stata, a statistical software. In addition to statistical calculations, she used a complex mathematical model called proportional odds – ordinal logistic regression to analyze the data. The methodology was approved by Dr. Tuan Tran, an epidemiologist.

Please click here for more details on the methodology, mathematical methods, and to view our questionnaire

Please click here to read highlights of our results. If you prefer the long, detailed version of the report, please click here to read the full report.

Are you a visual learner? Would you like to browse through our graphs and figures? Please click here to start your visual tour of the results report.

Our research indicated that between Kim Lien High School and Pinkerton Academy, the Digital Divide in education exists only at school in terms of physical access and usage of computers. We identified that Vietnamese students have a high awareness of the important role that computers play in their future occupations. Therefore, lack of awareness or acceptance of technology is not the major issue. In fact, Vietnamese students have difficulties in accessing computers at school. The number of courses requiring computers for assignments are low, and the students do not often use computers at school for schoolwork. This indicates that Human resources arethe main barrier. The curriculum should be modified to incorporate technology. Teachers should be trained to use computers as part of their teaching method.

Please click here to read about the actions we took based on the results of our research.

This is the largest research project any one of us has ever carried out, both in terms of size and depth of analysis. The project took us three months to complete, from scratch to the final report. Such a study would not be possible without the help from others. Please click here to read our acknowledgement.