PITT RECEIVES SPENCER GRANT TO RESEARCH EFFECTIVENESS OF INTERNET IN SCHOOLS

PITTSBURGH, July 15 -- Projections suggest that over 95 percent of

U.S. schools will soon have Internet access. Yet, will Internet use actually change students' educational experiences and make them more competitive in the new millennium? Janet Schofield, senior researcher at the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center and a professor in the Department of Psychology, has received a $149,900 Spencer Foundation Grant to research these issues.

Disbursed in two annual payments, the grant funds the study, "The Internet in School: Problems and Possibilities."

Over the last five years Schofield has been involved in a National Science Foundation funded research project called Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh, a collaborative effort involving the Pittsburgh Public Schools, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, which has provided basic Internet access to over 90 percent of the city's schools.

With the new funding, beginning this month, Schofield plans to address more fully issues such as school level factors that influence the amount and nature of classroom Internet use and the extent to which the Internet fulfills its promise for increasing educational equity.

The Spencer Foundation, based in Chicago, was established to foster investigation of the ways in which education can be improved around the world. To achieve this goal, the foundation supports research that gives promise of yielding new knowledge about education in the United States and abroad. It also supports the development of new researchers through a program of dissertation fellowships.

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