---
title: "The Internet and Education"
description: "An overview of how today's student and parents use the Internet to do research, homework, contact schools and teachers, and also sometimes to cheat."
date: "2001-09-01"
authors:
  - name: "Maya Simon"
    job_title: "Guest Contributor"
  - name: "Mike Graziano"
    job_title: "Guest Contributor"
  - name: "Amanda Lenhart"
    job_title: "Former Director of Teens and Technology Research at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/amanda-lenhart/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2001/09/01/the-internet-and-education/"
categories:
  - "Education"
  - "Education & Learning Online"
  - "Education & Learning Online"
  - "K-12"
  - "Platforms & Services"
  - "Teens & Tech"
  - "Teens & Youth"
tags:
  - "Teens"
datasets:
  - name: "2000 – Teens and Parents"
    url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/dataset/teens-and-parents-2000-survey-data/"
---

# The Internet and Education

### The Internet and Education

The Internet has become an increasingly important feature of the learning environment for teenagers. Research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that teens use the Internet as an essential study aid outside the classroom and that the Internet increasingly has a place inside the classroom.

Here are some of the significant findings from a survey of 754 youths ages 12-17 conducted last November and December:

- 94% of youth ages 12-17 who have Internet access say they use the Internet for school research and 78% say they believe the Internet helps them with schoolwork.
- 71% of online teens say that they used the Internet as the major source for their most recent major school project or report.
- 41% of online teens say they use email and instant messaging to contact teachers or classmates about schoolwork.
- 34% of online teens have downloaded an online study aid.
- 18% of online teens say they know of someone who has used the Internet to cheat on a paper or test.
- 58% of online teens report using Web sites that had been set up specifically for their school or for a particular class.
- 17% of online teens have created a Web page for a school project.

Here are some of the key findings from a survey of 754 of the parents of those youths:

- 87% of parents of online teens believe that the Internet helps students with their schoolwork and 93% believe the Internet helps students learn new things.
- 55% say the Internet has been a good thing for their children; only 6% say it has been a bad thing; 38% say the Internet has no effect one way or the other on their children.
- 55% say that it is essential for today’s children to learn how to use the Internet in order to be successful and another 40% believe it is important.
- 28% of these parents have used email to communicate with their children’s teachers.

Other education-related findings in the survey work of the Pew Internet Project:

- 5% of adult Internet users have taken a class online for college credit. That amounts to more than 5 million people.
- 53% of adult Internet users have gone online to do research for school or job training. On any given day 8% of adult Internet users are online doing research for school or job training.
- 52% of adult Internet users have done job-related research online. On a typical day, 16% of Internet users are online doing job-related research. About half of Internet users (more than 50 million people) have access to the Internet at work.

---

**Next:** [Main Report](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2001/09/01/main-report-21.md)