Abstract
This study investigated PhD students' computer activities in their daily research practice. Software that tracks computer usage (Manic Time) was installed on the computers of nine PhD students, who were at their early, mid and final stage in doing their doctoral research in four different discipline areas (Commerce, Humanities, Health Sciences and Sciences) at the University of Otago in 2013. These students self-reported as being skilled computer users. Analysis of the data revealed no significant difference in computer use within this cohort of students despite the stage of their PhD and discipline backgrounds. The findings suggest that these PhD students seemed to regard their doctoral research as a full time job but they generally only engaged with basic built-in software applications in their daily research practice.
Highlights
Our interest was to examine the applications being used by PhD students and the degree to which they used their computers to support their daily research practice
The degree to which this cohort of PhD students utilised their computers for their doctoral research purposes and the extent to which computer use had been adopted for their daily research practices was limited and low
Much of the literature related to the use of computer technology in supporting learning in higher education is based on perception data and/or post-event recollections of behaviour
Summary
Our interest was to examine the applications being used by PhD students and the degree (in terms of duration) to which they used their computers to support their daily research practice. Most PhD students use various computer technologies throughout their research for both generic and specialised purposes, including processes related to the preparation, fieldwork, analysis and write-up phases of their studies. For too long students’ actual use of computer technology in higher education, especially among the PhD students, has been left unexamined. Much of the discussion about technologies in higher education proceeds from interlocking sets of assumptions [1,2,3] that doctoral students have access to quality computer devices and can use these devices at a high-level of competency.
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