The Net Generation encountering e-learning at university
About > Background
The project is based in the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at the The Open University and runs for 24 months from January 2008. It included three surveys of selected first year courses at five universities representing the following types of English universities:
- Urban ‘Red brick’,
- 1960’s ‘New University’,
- Large Metropolitan post ’92,
- Recent University (ex-University college),
- Distance-Learning
The research is supported by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Objectives
- To gain an empirically based picture of first year undergraduate students as they encounter elearning by:
- Investigating the self reported attitudes and activities of students entering their first year in university
- Exploring their prior exposure to digital and networked technologies,including games and social networking.
- To explore their attitudes towards, expectations and experience of e-learning at university.
- To explore any linkages between their prior exposure to and experience of gaming and digital networked technology and their expressed attitudes towards and experience of e-learning.
- To investigate the use of social software in the navigation of the new university environment and the construction of new networks and communities (e.g. the use of Facebook MySpace etc).
- To develop the theoretical basis for understanding any generational changes that result from exposure to new digital and networked technologies.
- To provide timely evidence based advice for policy makers, teaching staff and administrators about the nature of new generation students in relation to the deployment of elearning.
