Creating profile of information technology knowledge

of newly enrolled students

eljka Pogaj
Department of informatics
Faculty of Economics - Zagreb
Trg J.F. Kennedy-a 6, Zagreb, Croatia
Phone: 01-238-3277, Fax: 01-2335-633, e-mail: zpozgaj@efzg.hr

Mirjana Peji Bach

Department of informatics
Faculty of Economics - Zagreb
Trg J.F. Kennedy-a 6, Zagreb, Croatia
Phone:01-238-3277, Fax: 01-2335-633, e-mail: mpejic@efzg.hr

Abstract: Paper is based on the results of the surveys that

Department of informatics conducts at the beginning of every
academic year in order to asses the level of knowledge of newly
enrolled students. Our goal is to find out from which schools our
students come, how many years they studied informatics in
formal education, and how they estimate their theoretical and
practical information knowledge. We also want to find out their
habits in computer usage, and for which purposes they use
computers. Collected information is basis for shaping lectures
and especially tutorial in Informatics.

students, and their habits in computer usage. Fourth part

refers to the organization of the lectures and tutorial in
Informatics. In the fifth part we conclude with our vision of
the further development in information technology
education.

II

METHODOLOGY AND GOALS OF THE

RESEARCH

Key words: information technology education, course development

INTRODUCTION

Every year hundreds of new students enroll to the Faculty of

Economics Zagreb. At the first year of their education they
enroll course in Informatics. We try to shape and organize
lectures and tutorials in Informatics as efficiently as possible,
especially because Informatics is the only course in
information technology during the first two years at the
Faculty of Economics. In order to do it, we have to know
better our newly enrolled students. One of the ways to fullfill this goal is the survey that we continuously conduct at the
beginning of the academic year. In the survey some
demographic data are collected. In addition students
anonymously estimate their theoretical and practical
information knowledge, they tell us about their habits in
computer usage, their access to computers, and what they
expect form the course in Informatics. We try to react to the
results of the survey in the current academic year as much as
possible. However, the results of the survey are fully applied
in shaping and organization of lectures and tutorials in the
next academic year.
Paper consists on five parts. Methodology and goals of the
survey are presented in the second part. Third part presents
the results of the survey. We have presented and interpreted
the results of the survey about the previous education of our

Paper is based on the results of the research conducted in

year 2000 and 2001. Research is conducted at the classes in
Informatics. In year 2000 research was conducted on the
sample of 557 newly enrolled students at the beginning of
the academic year. In year 2001 research was conducted on
the sample of 494 students at the beginning of the academic
year and on the sample of the 137 students at the end of the
academic year. We compare the results with the survey
conducted in 1998 on the sample of 636 students at the end
of the academic year.
There were two goals of these surveys. First goal is to get to
know newly enrolled students as better as possible (their
current knowledge in information technology, usage of
computers, etc. Second goal is two organize as efficiently as
possible course in Informatics.
We shall present the results of the surveys conducted about:

Former education
Secondary school
Number of years of information
technology education in secondary school
Estimated theoretical knowledge
Estimated knowledge in application
software usage

Usage of computers
Ownership of computer
How often students use computers
What software students use
In what areas of information technology
are our students interested in

80
60
2000 (%)

40

2001 (%)

20
0

III

1) Previous education. In order to shape contents of the

course it is useful to be aware of the basic characteristics of
our students. Our goal is to assess from which schools our
students come (grammar school, trade school, or other).
Based on such information we try to judge basic knowledge
of our students in information technology. We are aware that:

Grammar
school

RESEARCH

Syllabus for Informatics course differs from school to

school,
Number of years that students study Informatics and
number of hours per year depend on type of the school
and course syllabus,
It is possible to gain knowledge in information
technology only if there are computers and appropriate
software available, and if there are educated teachers
that are able to pass on their knowledge.

Trade
school

Other

Figure 1: Type of school that our newly enrolled students

come from (year 2000 and 2001)
Figure 1. indicates that almost 70% of our newly enrolled
students come from grammar schools. Number of students
from secondary business schools has increased by 3% in
2001 compared to 2000 at the charge of other schools. In the
years that are ahead of us we shall see if the trend will
continue.
There are four types of grammar schools: general, language,
math and classic that our students come from. More detailed
analysis (Figure 2.) indicates following. Approximately half
of the students that finished grammar school come from
general type of grammar school.

Research indicate (Figure 1.) that number of newly enrolled

students that come from certain type of the school are almost
constant for both surveys conducted in year 2000 and 2001.

ic
ss
la

2001 (%)

M
at
h

ge
ua
ng

First and third elements are mutually connected. Syllabus of

Informatics course is mainly connected with the type of the
school, with some differences in number of hours per year.
Such information combined with the distribution of our
students according to the type of the school is basis for the
estimation of the level of knowledge in information
technology that our students have when they enroll Faculty
of Economics.

2000 (%)

La

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
er
al

From which schools our newly enrolled students

come,
Which is the distribution of our students according
to type of the schools (grammar school, trade
school, etc),
Number of years that our newly enrolled students
study informatics

G
en

Our goal is to assess following:

Figure 2: Type of grammar school that our newly enrolled

students come from (year 2000 and 2001)
Therefore, distribution of our students according to the type
of the school in academic year 2001/2002 is as following
(Figure 3.):

Grammar school

Trade school

2000. (%)

2001. (%)

e
on

e
N

Other

Figure 3: Distribution of newly enrolled students according

to the type of the school
In designing syllabus for Informatics course it is important to
be aware for how long our students studied Informatics in
secondary school. Therefore, we measure Duration of
information technology education in secondary school).
Results of the survey point out that during the secondary
education 45% (2000 - 43,8%; 2001 - 45,5%) of the students
had Informatics course for only one year (Figure 4.). More
detailed analysis gave us even more alarming results.
Students that come from general grammar schools (2001
48%) had Informatics course for only one year. Better
situation is with students from secondary business schools
(2001 25%) that had Informatics course for three years.

50
40
%

So
m

Classic
grammar school

G
oo

10

oo

Language
grammar school

2001. (%)

10
0
nt

20

2000.(%)

20

lle

30

Math grammar
school

30

Ex
ce

40

yg

50

50
40

Ve
r

60

30

2000.g.

20

2001.g

10
0
1 year 2 years 3 years 4 years

Figure 4: Duration of Informatics course in secondary school

We also wanted to know how our students estimate their
knowledge in information technology. We let our
interviewees to assess their knowledge by themselves. We
differentiate theoretical knowledge that refers to the
fundaments capabilities of information technology and
practical knowledge that refers to the usage of computers in
everyday life and in business environment. Our students
estimated their theoretical knowledge in the following way
(Figure 5):

Figure 5: Theoretical knowledge of newly enrolled students

in information technology
It is necessary to point out that more than half of the
respondents estimate their theoretical knowledge as some or
none. Only 2% of respondents estimate their theoretical
knowledge in information technology as excellent.
Our goal was to assess practical knowledge of our students
in:
Operating system MS Windows,
Software tools Word, Excel and Power Point,
Internet.
We have selected these areas because we instruct them at the
tutorial in Informatics. Our presumption was that our
students would be mostly familiar with Windows, because
they are the most often used operation system for personal
computers, and with Word. Results of the survey conducted
in 2001 were as we have expected.
More than one tenth (15,8%) of the students estimate their
knowledge of Windows as excellent, more than one fourth
(27, 1%) as very good, and more than one third (35,8%) as
good. Results for Word are similar (excellent 13,2%, very
good 34,8% and good 27,7%). In both cases approximately
20% have very low level of knowledge (none - Windows
4,0%; Word 6,9% or some - Windows 16,8%; Word 17,2%.
We presume that these students did not have the chance to
get to know computer in practice and use them often enough.
More than half of the students have low level of knowledge
in Excel as (none 16,8% or some 35,4%). Approximately
one third of students (31,2%) estimate their knowledge in
Excel as good, 12,8% as very good, and only 3,6% as
excellent. Level of knowledge in Power Point is even lower
(22,1% some, and 65% none). Only 0,8% of students
estimate that they are excellent in Power Point usage, which
is not surprising because Power Point is rather specific tool.
Half of the students have low level of knowledge in Internet
(18% - none, 28,7% some). On the other hand there are more
than half of the students that has good knowledge in Internet
(23,3% - good, 19,0% - very good and 10,7% - excellent).

2001. (%)

We can conclude that among ten newly enrolled students:

Every day

Eight students have good, very good or excellent

knowledge in Windows
Seven students have good, very good or excellent
knowledge in Word
33%

1998. (%)

One or twice a
week
Less then once
a week

29%

Do not use
computer at all

e
on

Among 100 students only 14-use computer everyday, while

60 students use computer once to twice a week or less often.
It is evident that our students are not computer addicts, and
they only gain the habit to use computer more often. In other
words, as information literacy of our students develops the
same will happened with their need to use computer.

So
m

G
oo

oo

yg

lle

2001. (%)

Ve
r

Ex
ce

18%

Figure 7: How often students use computer

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
nt

If we compare the results of the survey conducted in 2001

with the results of the survey conducted in 1998 we can
conclude that students enrolled in 2001 have much better
knowledge in operating system and software tools. The
largest shift is in Internet knowledge (Figure 6.).

Almost every
day

14%

6%

Figure 6: Knowledge of newly enrolled students in Internet

in 1998 and 2001
2) Usage of computers. Number of available computers that
students can use everyday at the Faculty of Economics is still
very small compared to the number of students enrolled.
Therefore, it is important for us to know how many of our
students own computer in order to estimate possibilities of
our students for work on computer outside the Faculty. In the
year 2001 there were 71,1% of the students that own the
computer, which is quite better compared to 63,2% of
students that had computer in 2000. This information is
encouraging because on every ten students there are seven of
them that are able to work on their own computer.
In the following analysis we shall focus on the issues:
How often our students use computer;
What software tools they use;
In what purposes they use Internet.
We have asked our students to estimate how often they use
computer. Results indicate (Figure 7.) that our students do
not have developed habit of computer usage.

In investigating which software our students use most often

we have offered tools specific for MS Office: (1) Word, (2)
Excel; (3) Access; (4) Power Point; (5) Outlook; (6) Internet
Explorer. Among these tools (Figure 8.) respondents use
Word (81,4%) and Internet tools (75,9%) most often.
Unfortunately, almost one tenth (8,5%) of students do not use
computer at all.
2001. (%)
Do not use computer
Internet Explorer
Outlook
Power Point
Access
Excel
Word
0

20

40

60

80

100

Figure 8: Usage of software tools by newly enrolled students

at the Faculty of Economics
These results match up with the results that refer to purposes
in which students use computers. Most of the answers

(67,8%) refers to the usage of computer for writing text

and to the Internet (55,1%).
One of the results of the research was that half of the
students surveyed in year 2001 know how to use Internet. We
were interested in what purposes our students use Internet.
Three Internet services were selected: World Wide Web, email and chat, and results are presented in Figure 9.

In the organization of Informatics course some of the

elements could not be changed:

4.7

Other

Course is taught at the first year of the Faculty of

Economics Zagreb during the two semesters
Total time fond is 120 hours (lectures 60 sati, tutorials
60 hours)
Tutorials are conducted in the info lab
Practical knowledge of the software usage is conducted
only in the info lab in form of the two tests.

E-mail

40.3

Problems in organization of Informatics course are primarily

connected with the tutorials, and are results of the following
conditions:

Using WWW for education

38.9

Large number of students enrolled to the first year:

Lectures:
8 groups with approximately 200
students each
Tutorial:
16 groups, each group is
divided into two sub-groups (36 sub-groups
with 40 students each)

Limited capacity of info lab.

One classroom with 20 PCs
Tutorial organization:
One assistant, two students from higher years
that help assistant, one computer per two
students
Duration of tutorial in info lab:
Each student - 45 minutes per week.

30.2

Chat

63.4

Using WWW for fun

27.3

Do not use Internet

20

40

60

80

Figure 9: Purposes in which students use Internet

Purposes in which students use Internet could be ranked as

following: (1) using WWW for fun, (2) E-mail, (3) using
WWW for education, and (4) chat.

According to the results of the survey it is possible to create

profile of information technology knowledge of newly
enrolled student at the Faculty of Economics. Newly enrolled
student:

Finished general grammar school,

Attended the Informatics course for one year during
the secondary school education,
Has some or none theoretical knowledge in
Informatics,
Estimates his or her practical knowledge of
Windows as good, very good or excellent,
Estimates his or her practical knowledge of Word as
good, very good or excellent,
Estimates his or her practical knowledge of Excel
and Power Point as some or none,
Knows how to use Internet,
Owns personal computer,
Uses computer once to twice a week or less often,
In most of the cases uses Word or Internet,
Uses WWW for fun.

IV ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATICS COURSE

Subjects that are taught at the lectures could be divided into

three groups:

Fundamental knowledge about information technology

Hardware, software, algorithms, data organization,
computer networks, information system
Internet and Internet services
WWW, e-business, e-marketing, e-payment
Selected subjects
Decision support systems, data warehousing, artificial
intelligence, knowledge management, data security,
software products security

Tutorial comprise:

Operating system - Windows

Word (start and advanced level)
Excel (start and advanced level)
Internet
Power Point

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the results of the survey profile of information

knowledge of newly enrolled student at the Faculty of
Economics Zagreb is created, which gave us important
information on knowledge of our students. Such discoveries
together with the information collected during the lectures,
tutorials, tests and exams are basis for better organization of
Informatics course. We shall present two situations: first in
which data collected during the research have directly
influenced the selection of the themes of the lectures, and
second in which the results of the first test confirmed us what
we have presumed based on the survey.
(1) Students have estimated that their theoretical
knowledge is weak or none. Therefore, we have
decided to repeat at the beginning of the lectures
some of the basic knowledge in information
technology like hardware, software, algorithms, etc.
We thought that this is necessary although we have
reduced time available for other more specific
themes.
(2) Results of the first test in tutorial confirm estimation
of the students about their knowledge in usage of
Windows and Word. Based on these findings we
have decided to reduce the number of hours in
which these themes should be taught in favor of
more sophisticated software tools.
We believe that profile of information technology students of
our newly enrolled students will improve together with the
further improvement in the information technology tutorial in
secondary schools. This will give us more space to introduce
more new business oriented information contents in the
lectures and tutorial in Informatics course.

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[2]

G.S. Everett, Braking the vicious circle: Getting

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Instructional
Technology
Conference,
Murfreesboro,
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http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf

[3]

V. Bosilj Vuki, M. Peji Bach, and K. urko:

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