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A New generation of students and new technology: exploring the relationship

 

 

Description

This project explores students' needs in the light of generational changes, and connects these with the technology that they use from day to day.

 

In particular it is concerned with identifying the type of technological tools with which\members of the current generation of students - typically those born since 1982, the age group identified by Howe and Strauss (1999) - feel most comfortable, and how these can be applied to learning and teaching in higher education.

The project relates these to issues of information literacy, partly by investigating what skills students need to learn and develop, in order to reap benefits from the available technology, and partly by considering how these skills can be built upon by students, and how best practice can be shared.  It applies the principles discussed in Rich and Brown (2006) about how information literacy can be developed.

While the project deals with the experiences and needs of those studying business and management in a UK university, its findings should be of broader interest across the higher education sector.

Focus groups (Barbour and Kitzinger, 1999; Litosseliti, 2003) are adopted as a forum to investigate students' experiences with, and responses to, technology.  Following the principles of action research (McPherson and Nunes, 2002) the results are used to determine possible future approaches to learning and teaching.

Barbour R and J Kitzinger (1999): Developing focus group research.  London: Sage

Howe N and W Strauss (2000): Millennials rising: the next great generation.  New York: Vintage books.

Litosseliti L (2003): Using focus groups in research.  London: Continuum

McPherson M and Nunes M (2002): Supporting educational management through action research. International journal of educational management 16 (6) 300-308

Rich M and A Brown (2006): Underpinning students' information literacy through the scholarship of teaching and learning. Higher education review.  38 (2).  60-76

 

 

Organisations / Institutions

 

Cass Business School, City University

 

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