Only half of the students feel confident using technology

Young Austrians are slightly ahead of their counterparts in Germany, but lag far behind participants from other countries.

51 percent of school children aged 14 to 16 in Austria feel confident in handling technology. This is the result of a survey conducted by GoStudent, a tutoring company, in six countries. This puts young people in Austria slightly ahead of their peers in Germany (48 percent), but far behind peers in Spain (76 percent), Great Britain (74), Italy (67) and France (62).

For the study, about 1,000 students ages 10 to 16 and 1,000 legal guardians in the six states were surveyed in fall 2022 by opinion research institute Opinium. Qualitative interviews were also conducted with young people. For some of the assessments, only the responses of children between the ages of 14 and 16 were used.

knowledge of teachers

A similar result is obtained when students aged 14-16 are asked to rate their teachers’ knowledge. In Austria, 47% of this age group rate their teachers as good at using technology and encouraging its use. In Germany it is less (40 percent), in Great Britain (64 percent) and Spain (63 percent) much more.

By the way, in all countries there is a majority of students (10-16 years old) to retain traditional subjects. In Austria, only 39 percent want to replace mathematics or science with lessons on coding or the environment – this proportion is almost the same in almost all countries, only in Spain 46 percent want this new content instead of mathematics and science.

Artificial intelligence and robotics

In terms of content that is not currently taught in schools, but that they would like to learn, Austrian schoolchildren named video game programming, artificial intelligence (45 percent each) and robotics (44 percent). Video game programming, calculated across all countries, also takes the lead (51 percent), followed by artificial intelligence (50 percent), robotics (47 percent), finance (46 percent), cryptocurrency (36 percent) and higher mathematics (27 percent). percent).

When parents are asked (supported by predetermined answers) what else should schools teach, environmental issues (81 percent), current affairs and personal financial planning (79 percent each), and mindfulness (77 percent) are slightly more important than technological developments such as artificial intelligence (73 percent). percent) or coding and programming (69 percent).

(APA)