Paul Mayes :: Blog :: Student expectations

The quote below from the recent JISC-supported Ipsos MORI report on the expectations of potential HE students (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/studentexpectations) has led to some useful discussion here in my department:

These young people have grown up with technology as an intrinsic part of their lives, and expect that this will only increase with time. Although the students we spoke to in the discussion groups were generally unsure on their expectation of university ICT provision they were quite adept at evaluating different ICT options. It would follow that if they do not know what to expect when they get there, there will not be a mismatch between expectation and reality. However the research shows that they do know instinctively what works for them and what they prefer, when they are presented with it, therefore we can assume that they will be able to take decisions about any new technology they may meet at university.

While the students expect to be able to set themselves up, technologically, in the same way that they are perhaps used to now, they will not expect either their connectivity to decrease or for the technology to encroach on what they see as the key benefits from university – interaction and learning.

The traditional methods of teacher/pupil learning seem neither hierarchical nor outmoded to them. They see personal, face to face interaction as the backbone of their learning. It would be interesting and relevant to carry out a similar study with first-year undergraduates, who have begun to appreciate the many different ways learning can happen at university, to see if opinions differ significantly and if the potential for ICT is more easily understood once they have exThis age group suspects that if all learning is mediated through technology, this will diminish the value of the learningperienced the different teacher-learner relationships of university.