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blog: Studies on Students and the use of ICT
Submitted by Torsten Reimer on Mon, 24/09/2007 - 14:32.
I have recently come across two studies into how students use ICT and what prospective students expect of ICT as part of their university life. Among the conclusion are that students want free and unrestricted access to the internet and that they are happy to use ICT to support teaching and learning, but see it rather as a means to make learning more convenient and a supplement to traditional (as in face to face) teaching.
This 2007 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, and 2006 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study, which reports noticeable changes from previous years, is based on quantitative data from a spring 2007 survey and interviews with 27,846 freshman, senior, and community college students at 103 higher education institutions. It focuses on what kinds of information technologies these students use, own, and experience; their technology behaviors, preferences, and skills; how IT impacts their experiences in their courses; and their perceptions of the role of IT in the academic experience.
One of the interesting conclusions of this study is that students are in favour of IT use in teaching and researching. The reason most often given was however not that this made learning easier, but that it made learning more convenient...
JISC have published another study, conducted by IpsosMORI, that researched the attitudes of 16-18 year olds who are hoping to go to university. Among the findings are:
- 65% ‘regularly’ use social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace or Flickr (females more than males - 71% and 59% respectively) and only 5% ‘never’ use them
- A quarter (27%) ‘regularly’ use wikis, blogs or online networks
- Very few ‘regularly’ take part in an online community, for example a “virtual world” such as Second Life (8%)
- 62% agree with the statement ‘I expect IT to play a much bigger role in my learning than it does now’ with regard to their time at university, although qualitative insight suggest that perhaps it’s not clear to them how
- Of those who have at least begun the process of preparing for university application 50% have looked at or asked for information about the types of IT provision
- Of those who had looked at or asked about IT provision 42% said that there was more IT provision than they expected.
Thanks for highlighting
Thanks for highlighting these Torsten, they'll prove useful info for the forthcoming AHC-UK Conference and for research we're doing on history students acquisition of IT skills. The report's conclusions reflect my own experience, particularly regarding the use of VLEs, although it's dissapointing, though not surprising, that more students don't find ICT enhances their understanding of their subjects, gives them new insights or the ability to answer new questions.
students and the use of ICT
The conclusions also reflect my own experiences from the time when I was a student and also from the teacher's perspective later. Students may find it easier to use technology and adapt to new tools and gadgets than the older generation of university teachers, but that does not necessarily mean that they see it as a research tool beyond the simple convenience of online access to literature etc.
Having said that, this may at least partly reflect the way teaching is structured at universities. Are undergraduates really being given a chance to explore ICT based research? Judging from my (German) experience this is mainly dependent on the individual teacher. How is, for instance, a historian who only has a vague idea of the existence of text mining tools supposed to excite her or his students?