Collaboration and the net generation: the changing characteristics of first year university students

This paper reports on the first phase of research that investigates the Net generation entering university. The paper focuses on claims about the Net generation’s relationship to collaboration and cooperation and the ways that this relationship is associated with technological rather than social processes. Based on a survey of first year students in five universities across a range of subjects and disciplinary areas, the paper concludes that we should be cautious about the claims that have been made about Net generation learners. It suggests that broad brush approaches to generational changes obscure the subtle but important differences between students. It also suggests that claims that there has been a step change in attitudes takes attention away from the kinds of choices that might be necessary in relation to variations that are indeed taking place amongst new cohorts of students. The Net Generation The term Net generation originates in the work of Tapscott (1998 and 2008). His arguments are about an entire generation. Today's youth are different from any generation before them. They are exposed to digital technology in virtually all facets of their day-to-day existence, and it is not difficult to see that this is having a profound impact on their personalities, including their attitudes and approach to learning. Tapscott (1998 a) Tapscott uses his arguments about the Net generation to argue that technological changes lead to ‘inevitable’ consequences for teaching and learning. “But as we make this inevitable transition we may best turn to the generation raised on and immersed in new technologies.” (Tapscott 1999 p11). The change favored by Tapscott is a move from teacher-centered to learner-centered approaches and he claims that the ultimate interactive learning environment is the internet itself. A second common source for arguments about the Net generation comes from articles written by Prensky and the idea of Digital Natives (Prensky 2001 and 2001a). Prensky argues that digital natives are part of a generation that have: .. not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. (Prensky 2001 p 1) Presnky’s comments were made directly in relation to students but they were about the entire generation in schools and colleges and not limited to those pursuing higher education. The discontinuity described by Prensky focused on thinking and processing differently. Prensky even makes the claim that the brains of the new generation are different (Prensky 2001a). Prensky’s claim was that the biggest problem in education was a disconnect between ‘digital native’ students and ‘digital immigrant’ staff who retained the ‘accent’ of a different era even when they were fully socialized into a digital environment. Prensky argues that if you are not part of the new generation you will always be marked by your earlier experience. In this sense being a digital native or a digital immigrant is not a learned skill it is a fixed product of early development. Despite having slightly different emphases both Prensky and Tapscott rely heavily on technological determinist arguments. Tapscott’s argument that changes to pedagogy are ‘inevitable’ is a classic example of this flawed approach. A further source of arguments about this new generation of students comes from Diana Oblinger of EduCause who has called the generation born after 1982 the Millenials and claims that this group: • gravitate towards group activity • identify with their parent’s values and feel close to their parents • spend more time doing homework and housework and less time watching TV • believe “it is cool to be smart” • are fascinated by new technologies • are racially and ethnically diverse and • often (at least on in five) have one immigrant parent. This description of the Millenials unlike the work of Prensky and Tapscott is empirically based and is supported by large scale annual surveys of students in the USA (see for example Salaway et al. 2008). Oblinger’s argument is strongly related to Prensky’s ideas and Oblinger claims to have found a trend towards an internet age mindset. She also agrees with Prensky that there is a disconnect between the new Millenial students and the institutions that they are enrolled in. However Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) do not agree that the determinant is simply age: “Although these trends are described in generational terms, age may be less important than exposure to technology.” (2.9). This difference in understanding allows for older students to have different approaches based on their exposure to new technologies. Although the arguments of these three authors are actually somewhat different they are used widely and largely interchangeably. There has been relatively little discussion of these themes in recent CSCL conferences (Shih and Swan 2005) or in the international journal of CSCL, but in the wider literature there has been a more developed discussion of the issues that the Net generation raises, and this discussion has included discussion in relation to CSCL (e.g. Nilsen and Instefjord 2000).. Net generation and collaboration The Net generation argument has consistently associated the rising generation with new forms of sociality and a desire to work in teams or group. Most recently Tapscott’s new book includes this comment: “In education they [the Net generation] are forcing a change in the model of pedagogy, from a teacher-focused approach based on instruction to a student-focused model based on collaboration.” (2008 p 11). There are from our point of view two interesting aspects of this argument. Firstly the Net generation are ‘forcing’ this change, a twist on the technological determinism noted earlier, to which Tapscott has now added a generational determinism as if the Net generation controlled the educational institutions in which they are largely subjects. Secondly the association of the new pedagogy and a student-focus with collaboration, as if this was the sole and specific way that student-focused education could be obtained. Oblinger and Oblinger express an equally generalized notion of collaboration arguing in relation to teams that: The Net Gen often prefers to learn and work in teams. A peer-to-peer approach is common, as well, where students help each other. In fact, Net Geners find peers more credible than teachers when it comes to determining what is worth paying attention to. (2005 2.7) The argument that there is a Net generation has an educational component which suggests that the new generation of learners will be pre-conditioned by their use of technology to drive changes in pedagogy in educational institutions and that these changes will include aspects of collaboration, particularly team work and peer-to-peer learning. The research This research which is the first pilot phase of a two year study took place in the spring of 2008 in five universities in the UK. The universities were selected to represent the main ‘types’ of university found in the UK system and 14 courses were surveyed across a range of applied and pure disciplinary and subject areas (see Table 1). A questionnaire of first-year experiences of e-learning developed by the research team was administered in all five participating institutions. The instrument sought to collect baseline information about some of the key aspects of the students’ use of technology in their studies and consisted of four sections: demographic characteristics of the respondents, access to technology, use of technology in university studies in general and finally course-specific uses of technology. Table 1: University types. University A University B University C University D University E Founded Founded 19 th Century Founded 1970s (Polytechnic) university status in 1992 Founded 1970s Founded 1970s Founded 21 st Century from university