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This paper examines factors influencing students’ engagement with information and communication technologies (ICT) in secondary education. While prior research typically distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic inhibitors, empirical evidence on their joint and differentiated effects remains limited, particularly in the context of transition economies. The study aims to analyse the role of intrinsic inhibitors and external influences in shaping ICT-related attitudes and use among secondary school students, with a focus on their interrelationships. Data were collected from 187 high school students in Northern Croatia and the City of Zagreb. The analysis combines confirmatory factor analysis, network analysis, and structural equation modelling. The results support a three-factor structure consisting of intrinsic inhibitors, external influences, and ICT use. External influences have a strong positive effect on intrinsic inhibitors, which, in turn, negatively affect ICT use. At the same time, external influences have a direct positive effect on ICT use, indicating the presence of competing effects. This suggests that external factors simultaneously increase exposure to ICT while generating psychological barriers that limit its effective use. The findings highlight the complex role of external influences in ICT adoption. Rather than acting solely as barriers, they also function as drivers of ICT exposure. Policy efforts should therefore focus not only on improving infrastructure and teacher preparedness but also on reducing students’ psychological barriers to ICT use.

Self-efficacy is related to a specific domain and is a result of capabilities and beliefs of one’s own performance in a specific domain given a specific task, depending on the levels of anxiety, motivation, feeling of success, and positive and negative rewards. Computer experience, the learning of information and communication technology tasks at school, and the use of general applications in class are known to be related to computer and information literacy. This study investigates the mediation effect of student computer self-efficacy in using general applications in these relationships using a structural equation model. The data used in this study stems from nine European educational systems participating in the International Computer and Information Literacy Study in 2018. The results show that in nearly all educational systems, the self-efficacy regarding the use of general applications has significant mediation effects in the relationship between computer and information literacy and each of the three information and communication technology variables in the model. The mediation effects are strongest for general applications in class and weakest for learning of information and communication technology tasks at school. The results are discussed against the educational systems’ context with recommendations for improving student computer self-efficacy.

This literature review focuses the research conducted on Information and Communication Technology in English as a Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. It reviews various aspects of ICT integration, ICT tools, barriers and challenges to ICT integration, teachers’ perceptions and views about ICT and advantages and benefits of ICT integration in education. The factors effecting pre-service and in-service teachers and student teachers’ perceptions, views and confidence about ICT integration are also discussed and analyzed. This review further discusses the gaps in the studies and establishes a theoretical background for further studies specifically in Oman.

This study investigated negative uses of ICT and its Implications among secondary school students in Oyo State, Nigeria: A Phenomenographical analysis towards a Grounded Theory. A multi stage sampling technique was deployed and used in this study which involves the convenient sampling at the first stage, random sampling at the second stage, purposive sampling technique at the third stage and the purposive sampling technique was also used at the fourth stage to select respondents of the study. Information obtained were recorded and transcribed and used for analysis, and a thematic analysis was done. Findings of the study revealed that in a hierarchical order, the negative uses of ICT among students can affect and reduce: their concentration on academic work; students learning, cognitive and assimilation; students academic performance and achievement; the nation's education system in achieving its goals and objectives; and poses challenge to national development through high rate of poverty and unemployment. It recommends that the stakeholders of the Nigeria education system such as teachers, parents, governments and policy makers should monitor and provide policies that would help the mitigation of the negative uses of ICT among students in Nigeria to be able to tap into the benefits that ICT brings. Also, it is expedient to train teachers on how they can control and manage students in classroom in this ICT generation to ensure effective performance.

Purpose>Coronavirus (COVID-19) has exposed the digital divide (DD) like never before and has made it a hot topic of actuality. In this paper, a state of the art of research studies that dealt with the three levels of the digital divide and highlight its shortcomings in light of COVID-19 are presented.Design/methodology/approach>An integrative literature review was conducted, summarizing the rich literature on the digital divide by presenting its key concepts and findings. This study then provides suggestions for future research in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.Findings>It can be concluded that the digital divide is insufficiently exposed and examined by researchers. In fact, in recent years, very few research studies have focused on the first-level divide. Moreover, much of the literature has analyzed the second digital divide (in terms of e-skills) in the strict sense and at the national level. This review also shows that the existing studies on the third level-digital divide deal only with the individual results of using the Internet. Finally, future research on the three-level digital divide should study more digital inequality related to emerging technologies is proposed.Research limitations/implications>This paper draws up a state of art, which has important theoretical and practical implications in the effectiveness of full transformation to digitalization.Originality/value>The present study contributes to digital inequality research by summarizing key concepts and findings from the literature of the three levels of the digital divide. It highlights the unexplored research topics on some dimensions of DD which were behind the digital transformation failure in many countries and provides insights on future research directions in light of COVID-19.

This study examines the effectiveness of ICT training programmes for academics at selected universities in Africa, specifically in Cameroon, Nigeria, and South Africa. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with five ICT trainers and three trainees to better understand their experiences. The findings highlight both the challenges and the strengths that could be used to improve ICT training and make it more effective and relevant to the participants. Four key themes emerge from our analysis: course objectives and content, teaching strategies, implementation challenges, and expectations/impact of the courses. The objectives of the courses vary considerably—some focus on the practical application of ICT, while others aim to improve the participants’ understanding of ICT systems. Teaching methods also differ, ranging from more traditional teaching approaches to collaborative, project-oriented methods. However, we identify significant challenges, particularly poor internet connectivity and a lack of sufficient technological resources, which affect the learning process. In addition, there is often a divergence between trainer expectations and trainee perceptions of the impact of these courses on their professional development. This study aims to contribute to the definition of strategies to improve the effectiveness of ICT training, in the African context, including Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa.

This study validated the Croatian version of the Digital Stress Scale (DSS) and examined its relationship with psychosomatic symptoms, self-efficacy, and ICT use on a sample of 152 Croatian teachers.  Confirmatory factor analysis supported a ten-factor structure for the DSS with high internal reliability. All ten dimensions of digital stress as well as the total digital stress score showed significant positive correlation with both the frequency of psychosomatic symptoms and their interference in daily life. Total digital stress significantly predicted both psychosomatic symptom dimensions, while self-efficacy demonstrated a protective role, highlighting the importance of ICT education in preventing digital stress.   V študiji smo validirali hrvaško različico lestvice digitalnega stresa (angl. Digital Stress Scale – DSS) in preučili njen odnos glede na psihosomatske simptome, splošno samoučinkovitost ter uporabo informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije na vzorcu 152 hrvaških učiteljev. Potrditvena faktorska analiza je podkrepila desetfaktorsko strukturo DSS z visoko notranjo zanesljivostjo. Vseh deset dimenzij digitalnega stresa ter skupna ocena digitalnega stresa so pokazali pomembno pozitivno korelacijo tako s pogostostjo psihosomatskih simptomov kot tudi z njihovim vplivom na vsakdanje življenje. Skupni digitalni stres je pomembno napovedoval obe dimenziji psihosomatskih simptomov, medtem ko se je samoučinkovitost izkazala kot zaščitni dejavnik, kar poudarja pomen izobraževanja o IKT pri preprečevanju digitalnega stresa.

Blue-collar remote and mobile workers (BC-RMWs) such as repair/installation engineers, delivery drivers, and construction workers, constitute a significant share of the workforce. They work away from a home or office work base at customer and remote work sites and are highly dependent on ICT for completing their work tasks. Low occupational well-being is a key concern regarding BC-RMWs. The objective of this research is to understand how BC-RMWs can use information and communication technology (ICT) to elevate their occupational well-being. Drawing from the job demands-job resources theoretical framework in occupational psychology, we theorize that the distinctive work characteristics faced by BC-RMWs can be viewed in the conceptual framing of job demands. We conceptualize BC-RMWs’ practices of ICT use as possible ways to gather resources to tackle these demands. We conducted a study of 28 BC-RMWs employed in two private sector firms (telecom service provision and construction industries) in the UK across 14 remote work sites. Based on our findings, we developed the concept of ICT-enabled job crafting and theorized how ICT-enabled job crafting by BC-RMWs can help them increase their job resources to tackle their job demands and consequently increase their occupational well-being. The empirical context of the paper, i.e., the study of BC-RMWs, provides further novelty because these kinds of workers and their distinctive and interesting work conditions have not received much attention in the literature.