The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2010
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2010 The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2010 Shannon D. Smith, ECAR Judith Borreson Caruso, ECAR and University of Wisconsin–Madison Introduction by Joshua Kim, ECAR and Dartmouth College ECAR Research Study 6, 2010 4772 Walnut Street, Suite 206 • Boulder, Colorado 80301 • educause.edu/ecar 4772 Walnut Street, Suite 206 Boulder, Colorado 80301 educause.edu/ecar The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2010 EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The mission of the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research is to foster better decision making by conducting and disseminating research and analysis about the role and implications of information technology in higher education. ECAR will systematically address many of the challenges brought more sharply into focus by information technologies. Copyright 2010 EDUCAUSE. All rights reserved. This ECAR research study is proprietary and intended for use only by subscribers and those who have purchased this study. Reproduction, or distribution of ECAR research studies to those not formally affiliated with the subscribing organization, is strictly prohibited unless prior written permission is granted by EDUCAUSE. Requests for permission to reprint or distribute should be sent to [email protected]. Students and Information Technology, 2010 ECAR Research Study 6, 2010 Contents Foreword ...............................................................................................................................5 Chapter 1 Executive Summary .................................................................................................7 Methodology and Study Participants • Key Findings • Conclusion Chapter 2 Following Their Lead: An Introduction ................................................................... 19 Changes and Constants Since 2004 • A Creative Tension • Conclusion Chapter 3 Methodology and Respondent Characteristics .......................................................27 Methodology • Analysis and Reporting Conventions • Participating Institutions • Respondent Characteristics • Research Team Chapter 4 Technology Adoption and Ownership of IT ............................................................37 Key Findings • Student Technology Adoption Trends • Preparedness for College-Level IT • Technology Ownership • Hours Online • Frequency of Using the Internet from a Handheld Device • The Changing Portrait of Student Mobility Chapter 5 What Are Students Doing with Technology? ..........................................................55 Key Findings • Computer and Online Activities • Internet Activities from Handheld Devices • Communications Technology • Social Networking • Technology and Information Literacy Skills Chapter 6 IT and the Academic Experience ............................................................................73 Key Findings • Technologies Used in Courses the Quarter/Semester of the Survey • Course or Learning Management Systems • Instructor Use of IT in Courses • How Students Like to Learn with Technology • IT Outcomes Related to Student Success • Preference for IT in Courses Appendix A Acknowledgments ................................................................................................95 Appendix B Students and Information Technology in Higher Education, 2010: Survey Questionnaire ...................................................................................99 Appendix C Qualitative Interview Questions ...........................................................................109 Appendix D Participating Institutions and Survey Response Rates ............................................ 111 Appendix E Bibliography ........................................................................................................ 115 3 Students and Information Technology, 2010 ECAR Research Study 6, 2010 Foreword In order to remember the odd sound the is becoming a super-resource that makes phrase “personal computer” once had, you personal applications, data, and content avail- would have to be at least double the average able any time from (almost) anywhere. This age of the respondents to ECAR’s seventh is much more than a change in the manner annual study of undergraduates and informa- of delivery. It’s a step toward creating an tion technology. Before the PC came along, information environment that centers on there was nothing personal about computers; the individual, not the machine—a far more they were institutional beasts that lived in personal environment than the PC, yet inher- hidden lairs. Hollywood art directors strug- ently sociable as well. gling to convey the look of a machine most If our experience with other recent tech- people had no visual references for tended nology trends is any indication, undergraduates to rely on flashing lights and whirring tape will be prominent among early ascenders to drives. It worked; the wall-sized computer in the cloud. College students were, after all, the the 1960s TV series Voyage to the Bottom of first population to take up social networking in the Sea, a sort of hybrid of an oversized chess a big way; they built a culture around mobile board and a glitzy theatre marquee, seemed phones long before those devices became the utterly convincing to my boyish eyes. amazingly capable handheld computers they Then Moore’s law put computers on our are today; and they were pioneers of the early desktops and, eventually, in the palms of our World Wide Web. Students have gotten cues hands. But recently, personal computing has about the cloud from their institutions, many been dematerializing again, moving back of which have adopted cloud-based resources into unseen places that might, for all the end such as Google Apps Education Edition and user knows, be full of machines just like the Microsoft’s Live@edu. Though the consumer one on the USOS Seaview. The device on cloud as it exists today remains patchy and your desktop, or in your backpack or hand, immature, we suspected when we planned increasingly works by invoking services that our 2010 student survey that there was a are snatched from the air and reside “in sufficiently rich variety of web-based tools the cloud”—the public universe of services with “cloudy” characteristics to justify asking accessible via the Internet. Thanks to tech- whether students were adopting them in their nologies that blur the boundary between academic work and taking advantage of their local and Internet-based resources, the cloud collaborative potential. ©2010 EDUCAUSE. Reproduction by permission only. 5 Students and Information Technology, 2010 ECAR Research Study 6, 2010 The details are in Chapter 6 of this study, tions through the survey process, in addition but it will suffice here to say that almost to contributing to and reviewing the report three-quarters of our respondent students chapters. Gail Salaway, a former author of reported using at least one of the web-based the study, contributed invaluable assistance tools we asked about in a course during in survey design and data preparation, and the spring term of 2010. Much of this use Mark C. Sheehan shouldered the task of involved collaboration with other students. “buddy checking” the manuscript. Toby Sitko This comes on top of two other developments and Gregory Dobbin guided study produc- we’ve noted in recent years: rapidly growing tion, and our colleagues at the EDUCAUSE ownership and use of Internet-capable hand- Learning Initiative, Malcolm Brown and held devices, and ongoing near-universal use Veronica Diaz, reviewed the chapters and of social networking sites. Taken together, gave us generous and valuable advice. We also these technologies give today’s students an express our deepest appreciation and respect unprecedented ability to create their own to our former colleague Richard N. Katz, information-rich environments, available ECAR’s founding director. Richard was part everywhere all the time and linked by friend- of the team that developed our first study of ships and community affiliations. As ECAR undergraduates and information technology Fellow Joshua Kim (who also wears a hat in 2004, and he subsequently led—and some- as Director of Learning and Technology for times authored—all of those that followed. the Master of Health Care Delivery Science This one, too, bears his stamp. program at Dartmouth College) tells us in this At each of the many institutions we worked study’s introduction, for campus technology with, individuals handled the necessary and professionals this growth of consumer power often laborious work of securing IRB approval, means “a fundamental shift away from the developing randomized samples of student ability to determine how technology is utilized populations, and deploying the survey. Their on campus” and introduces an era in which names are listed in Appendix A with our “leadership equals the ability to actively grateful appreciation. We also extend sincere follow our students, faculty, and staff.” We thanks to our colleagues at Passaic County at ECAR invite you to take a step into that era Community College, Stevens Institute of by reading this year’s report. Technology, The University of Memphis, and We also extend our thanks to the many The University of South Dakota for helping people and institutions whose contributions us organize focus groups with their students. made this study possible. Shannon Smith Finally, we