Are our students digitally ready for HE study? : Exploring student attitudes to blended online study in a campus-based university

Abstract

The outcomes of a survey of Australian Engineering undergraduates on a campus-based blended course offer a snapshot of trends in student ownership of technologies and a view of student attitudes and preferred choices of hardware and software to support their learning experiences during their first year at university. This paper reports that students in this cohort indicated high levels of prior digital literacy coupled with high personal ownership of multiple technologies. The ensuing conversations and the outputs from the survey indicated that students were keen to use digital technologies including the Learning Management Systems (LMS) to support their learning. They reported an increased use of social media for studying with other students. This was in addition to their prior personal use of social networks for staying in touch with friends and family. The students were however unfamiliar with both the idea and the expectation from their tutors of extensive online preparation prior to their face to face classes, The discussion considers this study in the context of recent research into student experiences from the USA (Dahlstrom, 2012) and from the UK (Beetham and White, 2013). The latter recorded similar conclusions from their research into UK located students in terms of readiness to study at university, noting that students had ‘indistinct ideas about how they will learn at university and what constitutes legitimate learning practice – especially digital practice – in a university context.’