Analysis of existing gender differences in the effect of using the Virtual Campus platform of the Politehnica University of Timisoara

Abstract

Admitting the increasing interest for education delivered by the means of technology is relevant if we consider all the aspects, including features related to gender. Several studies point out that women and men differ in their way of interacting with technology, ICT being traditionally associated with men [1]. In the context of blended learning settings, there are several existing gender differences, which means a statistical analysis focused on differences between men and women users of the Virtual Campus platform is needed. The main objective of this study is to provide evidence of significant gender differences in the effect of using certain platform tools by both genders. A subsequent objective is to test if the efficiency of both manners of working with e-learning tools eventually converge around similar results (in case the results point to scarce differences). The research was conducted by looking at the final number of students following the Distance Learning program run by the eLearning Center at UPT, during the first semester of the academic year 2017-2018. Distance learning students enrolled at Politehnica University Timisoara are mostly digital natives, consumers of technology in order to support the teaching and learning processes. The aim of this paper is to analyze the gender differences in using the platform, based on the students’ online activity statistics from Moodle and all the resulting data.