This study was intended to understand and explain Indian tertiary education students' perceptions about using the Internet for their learning. The aim of this research is to examine the impact of Internet use on Indian tertiary education students' learning. The study explores the role of the Internet in teacher education students' learning and how students report the Internet to be useful for their studies. The purpose is to investigate whether better and increased Internet access links to

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... r educational opportunities. The investigation is informed by the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) theory of Bijker and Pinch (1986), which is used to explore the perceptions of the students about Internet use in their learning. The theory of SCOT suggests humans' perceptions are based on interactions and usage patterns of a particular technology, hence, in this study, Indian tertiary education students' perceptions about their Internet interactions and usage patterns are explored. In order to identify and interpret the different meanings of the Internet for male and female students, the relationship between gender and the use of the Internet is also investigated. An embedded mixed methods study was conducted involving semi-structured interviews (five females and five males) and a survey (N= 1000) of Bachelor of Education students from eighteen different educational institutions in India. My personal narrative data was also used parallel to interview and survey data. The four components of the SCOT (interpretative flexibility, relevant social group, wider context and technological framework) were utilised to analyse data, and present and discuss the overall findings. The interview data and personal narrative data were analysed using content analysis where the patterns of themes guided by SCOT were compared and contrasted within and between cases. Statistical descriptive and comparative analyses were employed to analyse the survey data. Of significance, this study showed that the participants perceived the Internet [...]