Resumo

GODOY RODRIGUEZ, Carlos E. Educational uses of ICT, technological competencies and academic performance of university students in barinas: a ca usal perspective. Educere [online]. 2006, vol.10, n.35, pp.661-670. ISSN 1316-4910.

The main objective of this research was to analyze the relationship between the educational uses of ICT, skill levels in handling technology (ICT Skills Index) and academic performance of university students from Barinas, so as to propose a model of causal relations that adequately represent the efects of the use of technology with academic purposes on the results of the studies. This was a random, transversal and anonymous study that follows the usual evolution of the research process: it begins as a descriptive research and ends as an explicative study. The sampling was done in conglomerates and stratified in three stages. The sampling for the study was made up of 410 university students from Barinas. A self-applied questionnaire was used. The causal model proposed during the development of this research, revealed significant influences of several markers on the grades obtained in the ICT Skills Index; which did not happen with the relation between the latter index and the Academic Performance of the students from Barinas. This result seems to support what is often brought up in literature on this subject, related to the obstacles found up until now by researchers, to prove the efectiveness of ICT upon the results in these studies; and places, once again, the known paradox of non-significance (See Russel, 1999, for a more detailed analysis of this phenomenon.) in the limelight of this debate.

Palavras-chave : Educational use of the Internet; Internet in Venezuela; e-literacy; academic performance; efectiveness in the use of ICT.