Investigation of primary school students' access opportunities to information technologies out of the school and their purpose of the use

The general purpose of this research is to analyse primary school students' access opportunities to Information Technologies (IT) and their purposes of using information technologies outside of the school according to the views of parents and students. In this study, a mixed method was employed by using both quantitative and qualitative research methods together. In this research "The Identification Questionnaire of Students' Purposes of Using IT" which is developed by the researcher for parents and an interview form composed of semi-structured interview questions for students were used. Frequency, percentage and Chi-Square test were used in the analysis of quantitative data derived from 1156 parents. Data, derived from the semi-structured interviews with 40 students, is analysed by using content analysis method. The conclusion derive from findings, it is found out that students primarily have mobile phones at their home, more than half of the students have internet connection at their home, those who do not have internet connection at home are respectively benefiting from the internet connection at the internet cafe, their relatives, their parents' workplaces, school or stationery. It is determined that male students are more using IT out of school for entertainment and for playing games with respect to female students. It is discovered that problems faced by parents in accordance with students using IT are; students spending plenty of time with IT, types of games students play and Facebook usage. It is found out that parents limit students on the daily and hourly base regarding IT usage and put restrictions about the types of games they play. In the light of these conclusions, some suggestions are given for the future researches and implementations. Key Words: Primary School, Information Technology, Parental Control