A new study shows that 27 percent of Canadian students in courses with limited levels of online resources reported learning more than in other courses, while only 18 percent of students in classes with advanced e-learning features said the same.
“I think it’s very interesting because we’ve been maybe a little conditioned to expect that the current generation of students, especially the younger students, really embrace technology in a way that previous generations may not have,” says Joseph Berger, director of business development and communications with Higher Education Strategy Associates, the Toronto-based research firm that conducted the study.
“What we found was, to the contrary, they actually prefer to have human interaction with the professor.”
The study also shows that 42.9 percent of classes that were taught entirely in person got a rating of “very satisfied” from students, but only 35.5 percent of classes with high levels of electronic resources got the same rating.
The survey was conducted with over 1,000 undergraduate students in Canada in an online panel that the research firm developed.
Basic electronic resources defined by the study include having access to online items like lecture handouts, notes, and grades. Advanced levels include features such as lectures offered by video streams and online tests.
The study shows that there are certain types of electronic resources that the students like, such as the ability to access course material online and being able to send emails to instructors, but indicates that in general they don’t like having the classroom experience replaced entirely by an online one.
“They seem to prefer the kind of traditional method of having a smart person in front of the classroom engage some discussion about learning rather than an online forum or a video stream or tool that replaces this human interaction with a technological one,” Berger says.
It is particularly important to know how students perceive their learning experience, he says, as today’s students view themselves as “consumers of education.”
“They’re paying more money, there’s a certain level of expectation that they’re going to earn a grade, they’re going to graduate and find a job; it’s more of a consumer experience than it might have been 20 or 30 years ago.”
The findings are consistent with what other studies in the field suggest, according to Mark Bullen, dean of the Learning & Teaching Centre at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, who has conducted extensive research into e-learning.
“There’s not really any evidence to support the idea that there is an entire generation of people with a set of advanced technology skills and different ways of thinking, different way of interacting with the world,” says Bullen.
“I think this study is another set of evidence that shows that whole idea is really pretty superficial and unfounded,” he adds, while cautioning that the sample of students in the survey might not be representative of the entire university population in Canada.
Bullen says proper use of e-learning features in classrooms differs on a case-by-case basis, and depends mainly on what is being taught and who the audience is.
“The key is always how it’s designed, and how well it’s supported,” he says.
“There’s a lot of research that shows that the single most important element in any kind of online or distance e-learning course is not so much the resources and technology, but how are the students supported in the process of learning, so there’s still a critical role for teachers and instructors, [and] facilitators to help students in those e-learning courses.”
