Miller, Schweingbruber and Brandenburg (2001) contend that gender gap for middle school students with regards

to computer access, use, and expertise is beginning to disappear in their. Miller et al conducted a quantitative study in October 1998 to April 1999. The participants originated from four different districts that included both public and private middle school students. The 68-item survey focused on three different areas: i) self-perception of computer skills and acquisition ii) exposure to technology at home and school iii) media style and content preferences. Miller et al. determined that the gender divide regardless of social economic levels are integrating themselves into the information technology era due to the internet. They also concluded that as accessibility of computers continue to increase, the gender gap issue would narrow. While Miller et al. attempt to inform the reader of the current research in gender issues on information technology with research from the 1990s, they often detract from their focus. In one example, the authors begin to discuss the promises of technology by allowing teens to conceptualize their own learning (126) as oppose to the gender issues. The potential of technology is an underline theme, but the research should stay focused to the gender issues at hand. The sampling procedures and categorization of different groups does raise validity issues. While Miller et al. did reach out to 568 students initially, this number did drop to 512 in the final numbers as the excluded participants failed to report essential demographic information. The authors did well to mention this, this group of 56 students maybe of a unique demographic and as a result may be worth exploring. Another issue, lay within the gathering of students from the different campus. If the students were gathered from each campus equally then the sample sizes or at least a relative proportion of the group sampled from each one of the areas should be equal. Table 1 in the report shows a strong variance in the population surveyed. For example the range goes as low as 6.6% to as high as 65.5% of a campus population surveyed. This can lead to heavy bias in one district over another. While this appears to be a cluster sampling strategy, it would help if the authors were more clear in their sampling methods. Miller et al. gather their results from a eight different schools districts within the Houston area, however, inappropriately generalize their results for Americas youth. While the results may hold true for Houston, it is difficult to validate this claim for all of America due to its limited testing area. The questionnaire would need to be extended to other regions at random with similar proportions to ensure its validity to stake this claim. The use of a questionnaire only allowed for a preset list of responses and didnt allow for a variety of explanations by students. It is noted that one of the many benefits of using a questionnaire was that the researchers were able to test and tabulate the results relatively quickly and efficiently. The problems lay in the type of responses available to students. All of the responses were pro computer use and didnt allow

students to respond that they did not use it or werent fond of computer usage. The first question involved students responding to know[ing] how to use a computer which did not get into specifics. While the authors do mention the limitation of not further inquiring about specific use, there is an argument to explore beyond a students positive response. In this case, attitude is important for self-perception, one of the values the authors identified, but their actual acquisition of the skill should be measured as well. A more in depth exploration of this initial question should be explored. Miller et al. did provide the option for students to circle all of the options that applied for many of the questions. For the students that dont relate to any of the questions, they may feel compelled to circle one or two as opposed to leaving a survey completely blank. The authors would benefit from adding an additional option such as none of the above. Miller et al. do explore a variety of middle school students computer behaviors and are able to conclude that within the Houston area, internet may be one of the main causes for increased computer use. The research does fall short in ensuring some of its validity with some procedural aspects of their study.

References Miller, L. M., Schweingruber, H., & Bradenburg, C. L. (2001). Middle school students' technology practices and preferences: Re-examining gender differences. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 10(2), 125-140.