Survey: Students Continue to Access Inappropriate Content at School
Arecent national survey of 200 educators provides some interesting findings regarding the amount of inappropriate content accessed by students on school computers. Commissioned by St. Bernard Software and conducted by JAS Market Research, the survey found that in the last year 59% of schools reported instances of students accessing inappropriate Web content during school hours. Of these instances, pornography (38.5%), games (45%) and peer-to-peer file-sharing applications (19%) were among the most frequently accessed content. Moreover, the majority of respondents (58%) reported that the number of incidents of students accessing inappropriate content has stayed the same or increased in the last year.
Most surprising about the survey results is that while these findings imply that too many students are accessing inappropriate Web content, about 82% of respondents gave their schools' efforts to protect students from inappropriate content a grade of an "A" or "B." Industry insiders suggest that the significance of these disparate findings is that schools feel they are doing the best they can to protect students from inappropriate Internet content considering limited funding, staff and time.
To view the full results of the survey, visit www.stbernard.com/presscenter/news/release.asp?id=48.
This article originally appeared in the 08/01/2004 issue of THE Journal.