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Background: There is extensive research on the use of technologies in educational assessment in higher education, but not in primary schools. Recently the Department for Education has been exploring a new way of assessing maths knowledge online for children in Key Stage 2. Aim: The overall aim of this thesis was to examine the relationship between how children and teachers use Online Maths Websites (OMW) based on their digital experiences through the lenses of Digital Natives and Immigrants. Methods: This thesis started with an exploratory qualitative study, which identified the most common use of technologies in assessment in primary schools. The next three studies of the thesis explored the relationships between the digital experiences of children and teachers and the ways they use the OMW. The first two studies based on self-report while the third study used a combination of self-reported and usage data. Main findings: Study 1 identified the use of OMW as the most common use of technology in assessment in primary schools. Studies 2 and 3 found that the digital experience factors that are positively linked to children’s use of the OMW were mainly their confidence and computer skills. Both studies added evidence to previous research arguing that there is no specific generation of children experts in the use of technologies. Study 3 also revealed that four out of five measures of self-reported and usage data were linked positively. Study 4 showed that digital native and immigrant teachers do not differ as much as authors believe they do. Conclusion: Children’s and teachers’ digital experiences should not be taken as a given, neither as digital natives nor immigrants. Their technological skills should be researched from a combination of usage and self-reported data. Teachers and parents should work together to build children’s technological empowerment.

Most research investigating impression formation during early stages of a relationship on social network sites adopts unrealistic, ecologically invalid social scenarios. This thesis used an ecologically valid social scenario to improve understanding of impression formation during the early stages of a relationship on social network sites. Three studies investigated how students get to know each other on social network sites in the weeks before starting university. A focus group study, a questionnaire study and an experiment demonstrated that incoming undergraduate students form impressions about groups of people (e.g. a group of housemates) and specific individuals (e.g. a housemate) during university transition. The studies highlighted that it is too simplistic to suggest that impression formation about a group of people is different from impression formation about a specific individual. Instead, the coherence of the social target, the nature of the affiliation with that social target, and the strategies used to get to know that social target on social network sites influence how confident students are in their impressions of each other during university transition. Explanations are proposed that, if substantiated, would require expansion of the Hamilton and Sherman’s and cues-filtered in theories of impression formation. The studies highlighted that impression formation and the influence of those three factors can partially explain the intensity of students’ worries about the academic and social aspects of their future university experience. The findings are practically applied as guidance for university and pastoral support services and further research is proposed to test the tentative explanations.