The Drumchapel Project: a study of ICT usage by school pupils and teachers in a secondary school in a deprived area of Glasgow

The Drumchapel Project was a joint exploratory project between Glasgow Caledonian University, a 1992 university, and Drumchapel High School, a secondary school in a deprived area of Glasgow. The initial aim was to explore ICT skill levels among the school pupils but an information literacy agenda emerged in the course of the Project. Focus groups of pupils and questionnaires, administered to both students and staff, were used. The questionnaires were also administered to staff and students in a school in a more affluent area of Glasgow for comparative purposes (Hyndland Secondary School). Home computer ownership was found to be higher than expected and ICT skills levels were comparable to Hyndland pupils. Drumchapel High School was found to be where pupils learned most of their skills. The home and local learning centres were found to be much less important. The school library was found to be a greatly underutilized resource due to staffing restraints. The need for an integrated information literacy/ICT skills training strategy linking secondary and tertiary education was the main finding.