Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

• Z. Khorang ¹
• R. Esfanjari Kenari ¹
• Z. Amiri ²

¹ Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran

² Assistant Professor of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Guilan

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The digital divide, like other social divides, forms a kind of social inequality. This form of social divide is the gap in access to digital tools and digital skills. Inequalities in access to digital tools and knowledge and skills can increase social and educational inequalities by transferring students from school to the labor market, and also affect the rate of migration from rural to urban areas. As schools resume education and restrictions are lifted, understanding how developing digital skills during the Covid-19 pandemic may exacerbate social and educational inequalities for some students is becoming more important. Because students in the same classrooms may have different learning. In fact, the extent to which citizens benefit from digital and media tools determines their position and place in the society and the spatial structure of the village and city. Therefore, the main goal of this research was to investigate the digital divide of virtual education of students in Alborz province during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Methods: The current research was practical in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical research in terms of the nature and method and was a documentary-field study in terms of data collection. The statistical population of the present study included the students of the central part of Karaj city in 1400, a questionnaire was used to collect the necessary information, the required data was obtained by completing 196 questionnaires and using the stratified sampling method. In the current study, the digital divide was measured with four levels of physical access, skill access, how to use computers and the Internet, and the level of motivational access. Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests were used to check the normality of data distribution, and non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were used to check the mean comparisons. The studied sample included government schools, private schools, gifted students' schools and board of trustees.
Findings: The results showed that there was a significant difference among students in terms of access to virtual learning opportunities during the covid-19 pandemic. Rural students compared to urban students had a higher gap in all four levels of physical access, skill, usage and motivation. Also, according to the findings, there was a significant statistical relationship between the geography of the place of residence and the challenges of online learning in the four levels of access mentioned. It was also observed that students who study in government schools have a significantly higher digital divide than the students who study in other schools. The results showed that the level of parents' education has a statistically significant effect on the digital gap of students, and female students have a smaller digital divide compared to male students.
 Conclusion: According to the results of this study, it is suggested that the current and future political efforts should be made with the aim of supporting rural students with disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds so that they not only physically access the Internet and other digital tools, but also acquire the necessary skills to learn and use the Internet. These solutions can be a tool to reduce social inequalities in education in different geographical areas. The digital divide can weaken the social wealth and even erode it. If it is not resolved or at least not reduced, it may have harmful economic, cultural, social and political effects for the rural society. Therefore, it is suggested that by developing the infrastructure and increasing the level of digital literacy of students, the ground will be prepared for the reduction of digital divide. Also, it is necessary to make political efforts with the priority of supporting rural students with disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds to be a tool to reduce the digital divide.

Keywords

• Digital Divide
• Virtual Education
• Covid-19
• Alborz province

Main Subjects

• Electronic learning- virtual

COPYRIGHTS 
© 2024 The Author(s).  This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)