Washington University in St. Louis

Teaching & Technology

ITeach Newsletter - Spring 2009

The 2008 ECAR Study of Undergraduates and Information Technology

Each year since 2004, the Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR) has conducted a Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology. This annual study provides insight into the rapidly evolving ways in which today’s undergraduates use and perceive information technology, including what they think about its impact on teaching and learning in higher education. The most recent ECAR study included a Web-based survey that gathered quantitative data from 27,317 students enrolled in 90 four-year institutions and 8 two-year institutions. Qualitative data were gathered from 5,877 written responses to open-ended questions and from 75 students who participated in focus groups.

The 2008 ECAR study reveals that today’s undergraduates prefer wireless hardware such as laptops and cell phones. At the same time, they are increasingly using information technology to stay “connected” to other people via social networking sites, such as Facebook, and to create and share text-based and multimedia content. Furthermore, despite the fact that technology is in many ways integral to the daily lives of today’s college and university students, they recognize that technology in their courses does not necessarily lead them to learn more or to be more engaged in the classroom. With increased opportunities to access course materials online, for example, they continue to value “face-to-face” interaction with faculty. Additional highlights of the 2008 ECAR study are reviewed below.

Technology Ownership

• Laptop ownership has climbed sharply, from 65.9% in 2006 to 80.5% in 2008. Of students living on campus, a remarkable 90.8% reported owning laptops in 2008. Slightly more than half of the 2008 respondents own a desktop computer, and approximately one-third own both a desktop and a laptop.

• Ownership of internet-capable cell phones has also increased dramatically, from 7.5% of respondents in 2006 to 66.1% in 2008. However, in 2008 only 30.8% reported that they use cell phones or a PDA (personal data assistant) to access the internet; respondents cited several reasons for not taking advantage of this feature, including the high cost involved, the slowness of the typical connection, and difficulties with use.

Use of Technology

• Nearly all of the respondents reported that they use their college’s or university’s library Web site (93.4%), presentation software such as PowerPoint (91.9%), and spreadsheet software such as Excel (85.9%). The use of email and word-processing software, found to be universal by the 2007 ECAR study, was not measured in 2008.

• Over 85% of the 2008 survey respondents reported using social networking sites (SNS). The authors of the ECAR study illustrate the increasing rate at which undergraduates are using SNS by comparing the responses of students from the 44 institutions that participated in the ECAR studies every year from 2006 to 2008: among this group, the use of SNS on a daily basis increased from 32.8% in 2006 to 58.8% in 2008. The 2008 study also reveals that a significant number of students use SNS for academic as well as social purposes; for example, half of the SNS-users reported that they utilize SNS to communicate with classmates about course-related topics. Despite the rising popularity of SNS among college and university students, a fair portion (14.8%) of the 2008 respondents said that they do not use SNS. When asked to explain, 2/3 of these students said they were not interested in SNS, and 2/5 said that they do not like SNS. For more on social networking sites and their potential implications for higher education, see the Review of Chapter 2 of the ECAR Study, in this newsletter.

• Many of today’s students are using software and  Web 2.O tools, such as wikis and blogs, to create and share content, often using visual media. More than one-third of the 2008 respondents said that they contribute content to wikis (38.2%) and blogs (34.1%) and nearly half (46.6%) said that they contribute content to video- and photo-sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr.

• Text-messaging continues to be a preferred means of communication for college students, with 83.6% of the 2008 respondents indicating that they use technology for this purpose.

Perceptions of the Use of IT in Courses

• The majority (59.3%) of students prefer a “moderate” amount of IT in their courses. This finding is consistent with the 2006 and 2007 findings. In 2008, 1.9% preferred “no IT”; 13.9% preferred “limited IT”; 21.4% preferred “extensive IT”; and 3.6 preferred “exclusive IT” in their courses.

• A large majority (82.3%) of surveyed students reported that they use course management systems (CMS), whether commercial products such as Blackboard or systems like Telesis that were created by and for specific institutions. This finding is unchanged since 2007, when a significant jump in the use of CMS was documented by the ECAR survey (from 72% in 2005 and 2006 to 82.3% in 2007). A majority of the 2008 respondents reported that they use CMS at least “several” times per week, and a majority reported positive perceptions of CMS.

• For the first time, the 2008 ECAR survey asked students if they agreed with the statement, “I skip classes when materials from course lectures are available online: 62.3% disagreed or strongly disagreed, 17.1% agreed or strongly agreed, and 20.6% were “neutral.” Interviews with students in focus groups suggested that students are reluctant to skip classes when course materials are online because they perceive “face-to-face” contact with faculty in the classroom as essential to their learning.

• The survey also asked students about their perceptions of the benefits of IT in their courses. The 2008 results showed that students agreed or strongly agreed that the use of IT in a course
  • Improves convenience when completing course activities (65.6%)
  • Improves their learning (45.7%)
  • Increases their active involvement in a course (31.8%)

Notably, the ECAR studies show that the proportion of students who agree or strongly agree that IT in courses “improves learning” has decreased from 64.4% in 2006, to 60.9% in 2007, and 45.7% in 2008. In addition, the percentage of students who agree or strongly agree that IT in courses increases their active involvement decreased in 2008 (31.8%) compared to 2007 and 2006 (roughly 40% both years). While it is too early to discern whether these decreases represent a broad trend, it may be that instructors do not consistently use technology in effective ways (see below) or that, as information technology has become more ubiquitous in the classroom, students have begun to see it as an expected component rather than as an interesting and innovative means to improve teaching and learning.

• There is room for improvement in the success with which instructors use IT in teaching, according to their students. For example, 34.4% of the 2008 respondents said that “some or almost no” instructors use IT effectively in their courses, 21.3% said that “almost half” of their instructors use IT effectively, and 44.4% said that “most or all” of their instructors do so.

The 2008 findings suggest that today’s college and university students continue to use multiple technologies to communicate and to learn, both within and outside of their courses. Their preference for a moderate amount of technology in courses suggests, however, that faculty should approach technology as one teaching tool among many. Furthermore, while today’s students clearly prefer wireless, mobile technology, current efforts to utilize such devices as a tool for teaching and learning must recognize that cost and other factors continue to be significant barriers. (See, for example, “Forget E-Mail: New Messaging Service Has Students and Professors Atwitter,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 29, 2008).

The 2008 ECAR study includes much more information, including data on students’ perceptions of their IT skills and analysis of whether there are differences among student responses in regard to factors such as academic major, gender, age, and type of institution (four-year or two-year). The complete 2008 study is available at http://www.educause.edu/ers0808/135156. A summary of the “Key Findings” can be found at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EKF/EKF0808.pdf.