Ict training certificationsitalianhightschool

Osservatorio su Formazione e Certificazione
Informatica nell’Università e nella Scuola
ICT teaching and certification
in Italian high schools
Informatics Education Europe IV 2009 - Freiburg, Germany
Mariacarla Calzarossa, Paolo Ciancarini, Luisa Mich, Nello Scarabottolo

2
• Goal: analyzing ICT teaching and certification
activities in the Italian high schools
– The “Observatory of ICT training and
certifications”
– Results of two studies (2008):
• Offer : ICT teaching and certification
• Demand: students’ point of view motivations
Schema
ICT teaching and certification in Italian high schools
IEE IV - November 5-6, 2009 - Freiburg, Germany

3
• Osservatorio su Formazione e Certificazione
Informatica nell’Università e nella Scuola,
founded in 2001 by:
– AICA, Italian Association of ICT professionals
– CINI, Italian University consortium for ICT
– Fondazione CRUI, operative section of the
conference of the Rectors of Italian
Universities
Observatory of ICT training and
certifications

4
• Mission of the Observatory:
– Monitoring ICT teaching and certification
activities at the University level
– In 2008 it started to monitor also high schools,
i.e., non compulsory schools for 14 to 19
years old students
Observatory of ICT training and
certifications (ct’d)

5
• ICT-related teaching and certification
activities (2006-07):
– Choice of the schools: geographical location
and large student populations
– CAWI: Computer Assisted Web Interviewing,
i.e., a web questionnaire to school managers
– Questions: related to the structure,
organization and topics covered by the
courses, and the funding policies adopted by
the schools
The first study

6
• High schools of 3 Italian regions, Lazio (Central
Italy) Lombardia (Northern Italy) and Puglia
(Southern Italy)
• Redemption: 500 out of 1,526 schools (ca. 33%)
• 145,00 students: ca. 61,000 in technical schools
and ca. 49,500 in lyceums (licei)
• 7,032 classes; 20.4 students per class (21 in
Puglia)
The schools

7
• ICT-related teaching have been analyzed by
classifying the courses according to the standard
organization adopted by Italian high schools:
– curricular course, belonging to the basic curriculum of
each class, thus mandatory for each student;
– additional curricular course, not belonging to the basic
curriculum but mandatory for each student
– extra-curricular optional course, offered to volunteer
students at no charge
– extra-curricular optional course, offered to volunteer
students with the payment of a fee
ICT teaching

8
• The large majority of the high schools (406 out of 500)
offer ICT courses, either as curricular, or extra curricular
activities, or both:
– The curricular approach is adopted by 65% of technical and
professional schools, and by 45% of the licei
– The additional curricular approach is mainly adopted by the
professional schools (26%)
– Extra-curricular approach at no charge is typical of the technical
schools (38%)
– The licei adopt more frequently the extra-curricular approach
with payment of a fee by students
Types of courses

9
• These differences reflect the different
attitudes of the various schools: the technical
schools consider ICT as a professional need
– thus devote to ICT part of their funds –
whereas lyceums tend to offer a larger variety
of extra-curricular activities, including among
the others, foreign languages, theatre, music
Interpretation of the results

10
• Costs per student for extra-curricular ICT
courses
Costs
Lazio Lombardia Puglia Total
Average Cost € 147 € 37 € 66 € 73
Maximum Cost € 600 € 330 € 350 € 600

11
• 170 high schools offering fee-based extra-
curricular ICT courses:
– 23% waived the fees to the students based on
their quality and merits; 15% based on their
incomes
– The merit-based approach is very popular in
Puglia (31% of the schools), and less popular
in Lombardia (16% of the schools)
– Both approaches are typical of technical and
professional schools
Costs (ct’d)

12
• ICT certification activities performed by the
high schools:
– performed by about 58% of the schools
– 255 schools offer the ECDL FULL certification
(7 tests) and 126 the ECDL START (4 out-of 7
tests)
– 133 schools offer 1 type of certification; 120, 2
types and 36, 3 or more types
– 9,937 students obtained an ICT certification,
ca. 7%
ICT Certification

ICT certifications
44%
88%
4%
2% 3%
0% 0%
4%
1% 1%
7%
0% 0% 0%
5%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%ECDLSTART
ECDLFULL
ECDLAdvanced
ECDLSpecialized
EUCIPCoreEUCIPElective
EUCIPITadministrator
CISCO
IBM
LINUXMICROSOFT
ORACLE
SAP
SUNMICROSYSTEM
Other
PercentageofSchools

Distribution of the students for the
various certification types
18%
71%
4%
1%
1%
1% 2% 2%
ECDL START
ECDL FULL
ECDL Advanced
ECDL Specialized
EUCIP Core
CISCO
MICROSOFT
Other

15
Costs for obtaining ICT
certifications
124
65
21
13 14
24
30
10
5 3
15
24 22 23
3
67
77
119
126
46
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Complete
payment from all
students
Partial payment
from all students
Forms of aid
based on merit
Forms of aid
based on income
Other
NumberofSchools
Always In most cases In rare cases Never

16
• Students’ point of view:
– Goal: to investigate students’ certification
experience
– CATI: Computer-Assisted Telephone
Interviewing, to 201 students who obtained
the ECDL certification during the school year
2006-07 in the ECDL Test Centres of the
schools of Lazio, Lombardia and Puglia
The second study

17
• 198 students passed all the 7 tests of the ECDL
full
• high schools tend to consider ECDL as a
professional certification (whose importance is
obviously higher if the certification itself is
complete), whereas Universities tend to consider
it just as a test of computer usage skills, then
focusing on the most frequently used
applications
ECDL START vs ECDL FULL

18
Motivations for acquiring ECDL
certifications
8,9%
10,5%
20,4%
32,2%
24,6%
33,3%
17,8%
14,0%
13,0%
33,3%
35,1%
25,9%
4,4%
7,0%
3,7%
2,2%
8,8%
3,7%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Lazio
Lombardia
Puglia
Percentage of students
Way of acquiring deeper ICT usage skills Advantage for university studies
Competitive advantage for future job Suggestion of teachers
Suggestion of parents Other
No answer

19
• The ECDL certification emerges as a
voluntary activity: 85% of the students paid a
fee for obtaining it
• The fee was more related to the costs of the
certification itself (skills card and tests) than
to the acquisition of learning material
• The fees have been considered adequate by
the large majority of the students (some of
them consider these fees even too cheap!)

20
Supports used to prepare the
ECDL tests
11,8%
35,8%
23,5%
33,3%
3,8%
3,7%
17,0%
23,5%
25,9%
41,5%
41,2%
37,0%
1,9%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Lazio
Lombardia
Puglia
Classroom lessons without PC Computer lab lessons PC self-learning not at school
Traditional textbooks None of the previous

21
Need to deepen the ICT skills
after acquiring the ECDL
10 9 9 11
24
9
15
212 2
7
9
5
7
8
6
9
8
12
1114
5
5
15
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
BasicConcepts
ofIT
Usinga
Computerand
ManagingFiles
Word
Processing
Spreadsheets
Databases
Presentations
Informationand
Communication
Othertopics
Numberofstudents
Lazio Lombardia Puglia

22
Willingness to invest for acquiring
deeper ICT skills
13,9%
57,9%
18,5%
25,0%
21,1%
29,6%
5,6%
5,3%
11,1%
55,6%
15,8%
40,7%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Lazio
Lombardia
Puglia
Yes, more than ⁄ 100 Yes, from ⁄ 50 to ⁄ 100 Yes, less than ⁄ 50 No

23
• Main results of the studies:
– more than 80% of the schools offer ICT
courses
– half of them offer both curricular and extra-
curricular courses
– A significant percentage of students is
involved in these activities: it ranges from the
60% in Lazio to the 69% in Puglia (max. 90%
of the technical schools in Lombardia)
Conclusions

24
– More than 50% of the schools offer to their
students the opportunity to acquire an ICT
certification; most of the schools focus on the
ECDL (FULL) certification
– Students consider ECDL as an added value
for their future job or study
– However ICT disciplines are mostly
addressed from an instrumental point of view:
a cultural approach to ICT as facilitating
interdisciplinarity is still very limited
Conclusions (ct’d)

25
• Future investigations will address additional
aspects, such as:
– the usage e-learning methodologies and tools
– comparisons with similar experiences at
European level
Future studies

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