Google, Mathletics and Khan Academy: students' self-initiated use of online mathematical resources

Today’s students increasingly engage in online environments, with ready access to digital resources and mobile technologies. While much of this activity is socially motivated, the internet is also a source of knowledge for students and frequently accessed for school assignments, projects and assessment purposes. As mathematics continues to be an area in which many students experience difficulties, it is not surprising that a recent Google search produced 57,600,000 results for ‘help with mathematics’. Current research, however, is limited in terms of documenting students’ use of such resources, particularly when they are self-initiated and often accessed in an out of classroom environment. This paper reports on a study that investigated the use of mathematical online resources accessed by students in Grades 5–9, with a particular focus on evaluating the effectiveness of Khan Academy, an online tutorial site. Data collected through surveys and interviews showed that while students did access online sites, particularly in the later years of schooling, they varied in both their reasons for doing so and their perceptions of how useful these sites were. The findings add to the limited research in this area and have practical implications for students and teachers, including the potential to challenge the traditional role of the teacher.