The use of digital technologies across the adult life span in distance education

In June 2010, a survey was carried out to explore access to digital technology, attitudes to digital technology and approaches to studying across the adult life span in students taking courses with the UK Open University. In total, 7000 people were surveyed, of whom more than 4000 responded. Nearly all these students had access to a computer and the Internet, but younger students were more likely than older students to have access to other technologies, to spend longer time using those technologies and to have more positive attitudes to digital technology. However, there was no evidence for any discontinuity around the age of 30, as would be predicted by the “Net Generation” and “Digital Natives” hypotheses. Older students were more likely than younger students to adopt deep and strategic approaches to studying and less likely to adopt a surface approach to studying. In addition, regardless of their ages, students who had more positive attitudes to technology were more likely to adopt deep and strategic approaches to studying and were less likely to adopt a surface approach to studying. Introduction This study was concerned with access to digital technology, attitudes to digital technology and approaches to studying among younger and older students in higher education. We begin by providing a synthesis of the recent literature on students’ use of digital technologies. The twenty-first century has seen the wholesale introduction of a wide variety of digital technologies in higher education. Institutions routinely use learning management systems (virtual learning environments) and web-based applications to deliver both the curriculum and student support (see Brown et al, 2010; Hawkins & Rudy, 2008, for recent surveys of the situation in the UK and the USA respectively). This has been matched by changes in the use of such technologies on the part of students themselves. In the USA, for instance, Smith and Caruso (2010, pp. 41–42) found that 98% of undergraduate students owned their own computers, and 63% also owned an internet-capable handheld device such as an iPhone. Students were sometimes asked to use digital tools by their teachers, but more often, they adapted the tools that they used in their personal lives to fit their academic context. The situation in the UK is broadly similar (Student perspectives on technology, 2010). The increased use of digital technologies among young adults in general has led some writers to argue that they constitute a distinct population who think and learn in qualitatively different British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 44 No 2 2013 338–351 doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01308.x © 2012 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2012 BERA. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ways from older people. This population has been variously called “Millenials” (Strauss & Howe, 1991), the “Net Generation” (Tapscott, 1998), “Digital Natives” (Prensky, 2001a) and “Generation Y” (Jorgensen, 2003). These commentators argue that, because of exposure to technology in people born since the early 1980s, there is a mismatch between their expectations of higher education and the teaching practices that they find on admission (see Oblinger, 2003). Indeed, some argue that young adults’ exposure to digital technologies has led to changes in the structure and function of their brains (Prensky, 2001b; Tapscott, 2009, pp. 97–119). Having originally dismissed older people as “digital immigrants” who had to try and adapt to using digital technologies, Prensky (2009) recently acknowledged that they might aspire to achieving “digital wisdom,” which he defined as “wisdom arising from the use of digital technology to access cognitive power beyond our innate capacity” and “wisdom in the prudent use of technology to enhance our capabilities” (p. 1), and he claimed that this too would lead to changes in their brains’ organisation and structure. Such ideas have potentially important implications for teaching and course design in higher education (Howe & Strauss, 2003; Prensky, 2010). Nevertheless, they are essentially speculations for which there is little or no direct evidence (for critical reviews, see Bennett, Maton & Kervin, 2008; Jones, 2011; Selwyn, 2009). Pedró (2009) conducted a meta-analysis of research from countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and found that there was insufficient evidence that students’ use of digital technologies had influenced the way that they learned, their preferences and perceptions regarding teaching and learning in higher Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic • Younger students have more access to digital technology and more positive attitudes to such technology than older students. • Students who have more positive attitudes to technology are more likely to adopt deep and strategic approaches to studying and are less likely to adopt a surface approach. • Nevertheless, older students are more likely to adopt deep and strategic approaches to studying and are less likely to adopt a surface approach than are younger students. What this paper adds • Students’ use of, and attitudes to, digital technology vary monotonically across the adult lifespan, and there is no evidence for any discontinuity around the age of 30. • Students’ age and their attitudes to digital technology are distinct predictors of their approaches to studying. • When they have similar access to relevant forms of technology, older students may be more likely than younger students to respond to online surveys. Implications for practice and/or policy • Policy-makers and practitioners should reject stereotypes regarding younger and older learners, such as those reflected in the Net Generation and Digital Natives hypotheses. • Both younger and older students hold broadly positive attitudes to digital technology. • Whatever their age, today’s students regard the use of digital technology as an integral part of their experience of higher education. Digital technologies across the adult life span 339 © 2012 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2012 BERA. education or their general intellectual development. On the contrary, surveys from Australia, the UK and the USA indicate that students are broadly content with the digital technologies that their universities provide and the level of competence shown by their teachers (Dahlstrom, de Boor, Grunwald & Vockley, 2011; Jones, Ramanau, Cross & Healing, 2010; Kennedy, Judd, Churchward, Gray & Krause, 2008; Smith & Caruso, 2010). Students’ attitudes to the use of digital technologies in higher education are important, among other things, because they may be related to their approaches to studying. Goodyear, Asensio, Jones, Hodgson and Steeples (2003) surveyed students who were taking courses at four UK universities delivered by networked learning (see also Goodyear, Jones, Asensio, Hodgson & Steeples, 2005). They found that students who had more positive attitudes were more likely to adopt a deep approach to studying (aimed at understanding the course content), were more likely to adopt a strategic approach to studying (aimed at achieving the highest marks or grades) and were less likely to adopt a surface approach to studying (aimed at being able to reproduce the course materials for the purposes of assessment). Similar results were obtained by Foster and Lin (2007) and by Chen, Lambert and Guidry (2010). However, these results apply to young adults: most research into students’ use of and attitudes towards information technologies has either marginalised older students or else ignored them completely. One exception to this is a survey carried out by Jones et al (2010) with students at five English universities (see also Jones & Hosein, 2010). Responses were obtained from 596 (or 33%) of the 1809 students who were surveyed. There were clear age-related differences both in technology use (for instance, with younger students using laptops or handheld devices rather than desktop computers and using newer forms of technology such as wikis, blogs or virtual worlds) and in attitudes to technology (with older students reporting less confidence in their use of digital tools than younger students). Even so, neither the older students nor the younger students constituted a homogeneous group in their use of digital technologies, and there was no evidence for any discontinuity around the age of 30, as would be predicted by the Net Generation and Digital Natives hypotheses. Moreover, other factors (especially gender) were equally important in influencing the students’ use of digital technologies. One basic problem with this study was that nearly all of the older students were taking courses by distance learning with the UK Open University, whereas most of the younger students were at campus-based institutions. Consequently, variations in age were directly confounded with differences in the mode of course delivery. The present study was motivated by a concern that people in the oldest groups might differ in their use of digital technology from younger adults. This is typically attributed to older people having poorer access to technology, less motivation to use technology and fewer digital skills than younger adults (Peacock & Künemund, 2007; Wagner, Hassanein & Head, 2010). At a global level, this “digital divide” is likely to be moderated by gender, class and other characteristics (eg, Graham, 2011; Shieh, Chang & Liu, 2011), but in Western society and especially in higher education, age differences have been identified as being of primary concern. We surveyed 3000 people aged 60 and over who were taking courses by distance learning with the UK Open University and we also included comparison groups of students between the ages of 21 and 59. We asked about their access to digital technologies, their use of digital technologies, their use of assistive technologies and their attitudes to digital technologies. We also asked about their approaches to studying on their courses, because previous research had shown that older students are more likely to adopt a deep approach to studying and less likely to adopt a surface approach to studying than younger students (see Baeten, Kyndt, Struyven & Dochy, 2010, for a review). In other words, we compared access to digital technologies, attitudes to digital technologies and approaches to studying across the adult life span. 340 British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 44 No 2 2013 © 2012 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2012 BERA.