Computer Usage of Sinclair Students

White Paper Collaboration

Contacts:
Emily Barnhill
emily.barnhill@my.sinclar.edu
Kylie Alcorn
kylie.alcorn@my.sinclar.edu
Denarius Harris
denarius.harris@my.sinclar.edu
Sinclair Community College
Emily Barnhill
Kylie Alcorn
Denarius Harris
Introduction
The world revolves around the internet, so a group of undergraduates at Sinclair
Community College desired to know what other students use their computers for. These
findings are drawn from observations, surveys, interviews, and secondary research. As
we hypothesized what our results would be, we determined that our information would
benefit professors here at Sinclair, and other universities across the country. Together,
we predicted we would find that students use their computers most for college involved
work and social media judging by the fact that this is what us, as students, use our
computers for most.

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Methodologies
To begin the process of our research, we first defined the results we wanted to
generate. Our professor suggested we used the question, For what purposes do
Sinclair Students use their cell phones? When we met with her, we decided that the
question was too broad and personal; this lead us to want to know what Sinclair
Students use their computers for.
After finally coming to a conclusion on what our question was going to be, we
decided we would observe what students do on their computers in the library. The first
time, each of us went on opposite sides of the Sinclair library and walked past students
while recording what sites they were on. We each recorded data twice, once on 9-82015, and then also on 9-10-15. Although we each recorded on the same dates, we
chose to observe at different times of the day. Finally, we came together, compared our
information, and saw which sites were used the most.
The third step we took in our research process was having a conference with our
professor to discuss the progress of our research. After doing our observations, we
realized that our question might work a bit better if it were tweaked. We discovered that
asking, For what purposes do Sinclair Community College students use their
computers for? should be more specific. As a group, we then decided to add a time
aspect into our question to narrow it down some. We composed the question, What do
Sinclair Students spend the most time doing on their computers? At the end of this
conference, we came to the conclusion that by the next meeting we needed to know
exactly who we wanted to send our survey to, to define how we would create our
survey.

Computer usage of Sinclair Students: White Paper Collaboration 3

When we met the next week, we had decided that we wanted to get our survey to
as many students at Sinclair as we could. Our professor gave us a paper that helped us
determine how many surveys we would need to send out in order to receive enough
responses. Our original number showed that we needed to reach 496 students with a
20% rate of return. We then decided that because we are sending it to faculty here at
Sinclair, our rate of return is more around 80%. When we updated our equation, we only
needed to send out 125 surveys in order to get as many responses as we desired. We
then began generating questions and, because we had already narrowed our question
down so much, we went ahead and asked our main question first in our survey. We also
asked how much time they spent on that one task. We then asked the same question
but just modified it to second most. After writing our survey, we told our professor that
it was okay for her to send the survey to all the professors that allowed her to so their
classes could complete them. We began waiting to get survey responses, but over time
we only received 43 responses.
As a group we decided that interviews would help our research. We chose to
interview three different Sinclair students. One interviewed a basketball player named
DeAngelo, and he said he uses the computers at school mostly for homework involving
eLearn, but also enjoys listening to music, watching basketball videos and sometimes
playing games on there as well. Another member interviewed a woman named Victoria,
currently a Nurses Aid and studying to become a RN, that said she uses the computers
mostly for eLearn to complete assignments but also uses it for Facebook. The last
group member also interviewed a student named Nicole and she is studying to become

Computer usage of Sinclair Students: White Paper Collaboration 4

a dietitian. We learned that she uses her computer mostly to study, and also navigates
through e-learn.
Throughout the group, we each researched three different articles to see what
extra data we could collect from distant areas. With that, each of us found close to the
same information that we were looking for. In all three of our articles we found that
students dont always use school computers for school work. Some students listen to
music, play games, go on social media, and watch sports. Although school computers
should be used for school work, students tend to procrastinate and go on social media
when they get bored.
As our results began to flow in, we decided that professors would be our best
audience to give this information to. Even though professors know that students use
many websites at school, we want them to know that social media and eLearn are the
main websites students use. We believe that providing professors with this data and
knowledge will benefit the students success.

Results
After reading The White Paper Collaboration article, it made us extremely
conscious of how to word our surveys and our interviews. This paper is what lead us to
change our main question numerous times. We felt that we needed to come up with a
specific question that would give important information to a certain group of people. We
thought hard on how to exactly ask our question while getting the most unbiased
answers and we feel that reading this paper benefited the way we conveyed our study.

Computer usage of Sinclair Students: White Paper Collaboration 5

After sending out our question in the survey, it showed that social media was the
most used website by Sinclair students,
with eLearn following closely behind by
one vote. We thought from the beginning
that we would receive results that
coincided with school and personal
activities, considering we were collecting
specifically from college students. We sent
out our survey to 125 people, hoping to
receive about 96 back. We ended up only getting 43 responses, but decided this would
still give us good outlook on students we couldnt observe personally. This data showed
us that students value staying connected with others, but also spend a similar amount
of time on tending to classes. Professors, specifically at Sinclair, will find this helpful
when they go to send important information to their students.
Our research group brought all of our data together and we found that in every
sample we collected, we got the same answers. Whether it be the survey or our
interviews, social media and eLearn was always reigned supreme.
Conclusion
This research study has given us answers to where most students spend the
majority of their free time. Whether it be a professor or a marketer, this information could
benefit anyone. The students that are in college now are considered to be the new
school technology era. Most were introduced to modern technology as teenagers and
are now largely engulfed in media. They are the guinea pigs of the future. This

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information exclusively gives an outlook on just how much time college students spend
doing their homework on the computer. Not too long ago, everything was printed out.
You were given hand-outs and worksheets, but now with the click of a button you can
send anything to anyone and we feel this was presented in our data.
This study cant speak for all college students though. To better this study in the
future, it needs to go across the United States. Sinclair Community College is just a
drop in the bucket when it comes to students, so to be nationally dependable the
surveys need to go far and wide. When researching reliable articles, we came across a
group that did a study showing that college students believed their internet usage would
only increase over time, and that they depend on it for personal and educational use
just like we observed. (Metzger/Flanagin/Zwarun, 2007) As we kept collecting data, we
were confident that what we were receiving in our surveys and observations were
voicing the actions of most Sinclair College Students. This research study is very
flexible and versatile to anyone that reads this paper and that is exactly what we were
aiming for.

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Key Words
Computer*, Usage, Student*, College, Professor, Time, Survey

Works Cited
Carder, Sheri, Rebecca Gatlin-Watts, and Michael Rubach. "Click Click: Over 1,000
International College Students Detail Traditional Computer Usage." Academy Of
Educational Leadership Journal 1 (2012): 69. Academic OneFile. Web. 24
Sept.

2015.

Metzger, Miriam J., Andrew J. Flanagin, and Lara Zwarun. "College Student Web Use,
Perceptions Of Information Credibility, And Verification Behavior." Computers &
Education 41.3 (2003): 271-290. ERIC. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.