The latest ECAR findings – No shortcuts, convenience, MySpace

Looking at the latest ECAR survey, I found some interesting findings. The first is that putting materials online does not encourage students to skip, IT does make student life more convenient and TheirSpace does exist.

Skipping Classes When Materials are Online
Also, for the first time in 2008, the ECAR survey asked students if they skip classes when materials  from course lectures are available online. Just more than 62% of students disagree or strongly disagree. About 1 in 6 respondents, however, agree that they skip classes when these materials are online. When asked about skipping classes in the focus groups, students mention the importance of interaction with the instructor in learning the course materials.

Student Success and IT in Courses
How does higher education’s use of IT affect student success? While this is a bottom-line concern for both educators and administrators, it is fraught with exceedingly complicated issues. Still, the ECAR survey provides a valuable opportunity to learn more about this critical area—specifically about how students perceive the impact of IT on courses. To this end, ECAR designed one question about each of three important dimensions of student success:

• Learning: “The use of IT in my courses improves my learning.” (45.7% of respondents agree)
• Student engagement: “I get more actively involved in courses that use IT.” (31.8% agree)
• Convenience: “IT makes doing my course activities more convenient.” (65.6% agree)

Convenience is the clear front-runner. Each year, in both the quantitative and qualitative data, respondents have told us that convenience is the most valuable benefit of IT in courses. Still, 9.4% of 2008 respondents disagree, indicating that there is room for improvement even on the convenience dimension. With respect to learning, almost half agree (45.7%), another 39.3% are neutral, and 15.1% disagree that IT in courses improves their learning.

SNS
Only 5.5%, however, extend their use of SNSs to communication with instructors about course-related matters. Students in focus groups and in the survey comments expressed both pros and cons to involvement of instructors in their SNS lives—many adamant that SNSs should be the exclusive realm of students, but others liking the idea of interacting with instructors and teaching assistants using the same SNS mechanism
they already use to communicate with friends and classmates.