OECD Report Consistent with BCIT Digital Learner Study

The OECD has just released a report that reviews the Net Generation research and its implications for higher education policy. The conclusions of this report are remarkably consistent with the findings of the BCIT Digital Learners in Higher Education study which is underway.

New Millennium Learners in Higher Education: Evidence and Policy Implications concludes:
1) although an increasing percentage of higher education students may considered technologically adept, "it is misleading to consider that all them fit equally well into the image of the new millennium learners...for the purposes of improving teaching and learning in higher education, the diversity of students and situations matters most." In other words, as the BCIT study concluded, context matters.

2) The empirical evidence does not support the claim that students' increasing use of digital technologies is "transforming the way in which they learn, their social values and lifestyles and...their expectations about teaching and learning in higher education. " Most of them have a very cautious view of the role of technology in teaching and look to it to provide access and convenience but not a radical transformation in teaching. This is also consistent with the BCIT study which found that BCIT learners have a very instrumental view of educational technology.

One of the most interesting findings of the study was that students seem to be moving increasingly to the use of more personalized technology that provides for communication that is both mobile and not controlled by higher education institutions: "This may signal shifts in relationships towards more enclosed personal relations which will have implications for the way students may engage in the future as integrated participants within higher education institutions. Students seem to be moving along a life path within a shell of privacy, obeying the educational traffic rules but making contact only with other shelled individuals only as and when necessary."