DIGITAL LEARNERS AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF CATALONIA: A SKEPTICAL VIEW OF THE PHENOMENON OF THE NET GENERATION

Abstract

Some authors, most of them from the United States, have stated that university students born after 1982 have been profoundly influenced by the advent of digital technologies, showing different characteristics when compared to previous generations. These students, called the \\\\\\\"Net Generation\\\\\\\", are supposed to be digitally literate, continuously connected, showing a need for immediacy in receiving information, preference for social activities, being active experiential learners, showing a capacity to carry out several tasks simultaneously and being involved in the community (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Prensky, 2005; Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). However, it is worth asking if that is a current observable phenomenon. Are those students at the UOC born after the 80s really more familiar with ICT tools than those born in previous generations? Do they show different study habits and learning paths? Different research lines (Kennedy et al., 2008, Bennett, et al, 2008; Guo et al, 2008, Selwyn, 2009, Bullen et al, in press) highlight that scientific data or statistics are rarely used when discussing this generation’s characteristics. The international research project, Digital Learners in Higher Education seeks to develop a sophisticated and evidence-based understanding of university learners in different institutional contexts and the perception of cultures in their use of technology in a social and educational context. This project endeavours to understand the problem in depth and to observe what the growing use of new digital technologies means for teaching and learning in higher education. This research project is led by the British Columbia Institute of Technology and includes the University of Regina and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). The research questions of this study are: • Do postsecondary students distinguish their social and educational use of ICTs? • What impact does student social use of ICTs have on postsecondary learning environments? • What is the relationship between social and educational uses of ICTs in postsecondary education? In order to find out students’ social and educational use of ICTs in three different contexts, we use a multi-case study embedded design (Yin, 2009). The cases consist of three distinct postsecondary institutional contexts: a Canadian polytechnic teaching institution (BCIT), a Canadian research-intensive university (University of Regina) and a European fully online university (Open University of Catalonia). In the first phase of the study, BCIT partners reviewed the literature and checked some of the claims about Net Gen students. Specifically, the aims of this phase were to determine whether or not students at the BC Institute of Technology (BCIT) fit the Net Generation’s profile as portrayed in the previously revised literature, and to try to understand how BCIT learners use various information and communication technologies. The review of the literature suggests that the discourse about the impact of new digital technologies on postsecondary education has been dictated by speculation, anecdotal observations and proprietary research that is difficult to assess. We found that there is no empirical basis for most of the arguments that have been made (Bullen et al., 2009a). In the second phase of the study, a survey was designed by BCIT partners in order to gather information about students’ communication and study habits. Later, the UOC partners adapted the survey to the characteristics of their cross-over “ICT Competences” course, in which students developed a research project in groups; taking into account that this is a course studied by approximately 3,000 students per semester. In this paper, the 1,036 student responses to the survey are deeply analysed in order to demonstrate that there is no statistically significant relationship between our student’s age and the Net Generation’s characteristics. In order to go beyond our analysis and considering the features of the ICT competences’ course, the relationship between student age and their perception about the time dimension of studying online and collaborative online learning will also be deeply analysed.