Download Report: School Leaders and Technology: Results from a National Survey
In February 2018, the Education Week Research Center fielded an online survey to a representative sample of more than 500 school leaders, including principals, assistant principals, and deans. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent.
The topic of the survey was technology. Specifically, the questionnaire focused on screen-time, personalized learning, social media, cyber-bullying, media literacy, sexting, and the Computer Science for All movement.
Highlights of the survey findings include:
- Most leaders say that students spend the right amount of screen time in school. However, 95 percent are concerned that students get too much screen time at home.
- The majority of leaders (57 percent) report that digital technologies are an importantsupplemental resource used to personalize the learning experience based on each student’sstrengths, weaknesses, and preferences. Relatively few (16 percent) say such technologies are central to their mission or that they do not use them at all (3 percent).
- More than half of school leaders (55 percent) are extremely concerned about student social media use outside of school.
- Just under half of leaders (45 percent) are extremely concerned about cyber-bullying.
- Forty-three percent of leaders are very concerned about students’ inability to gauge thereliability of online news.
- Compared to their elementary and high school peers, middle school leaders are most concerned about student sexting.
- Just 7 percent of leaders say that teaching computer science or data science is central to the mission of their operation.Overall, findings suggest that school-based leaders face multiple challenges as they educate children in an increasingly technology-focused world.
