The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007 is a study from the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research about undergraduate IT experiences. They describe the study thus,
This 2007 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, and 2006 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study, which reports noticeable changes from previous years, is based on quantitative data from a spring 2007 survey and interviews with 27,846 freshman, senior, and community college students at 103 higher education institutions. It focuses on what kinds of information technologies these students use, own, and experience; their technology behaviors, preferences, and skills; how IT impacts their experiences in their courses; and their perceptions of the role of IT in the academic experience.
The Executive Summary doesn’t include any surprising insights. I conclude that faculty need to a) keep up with technology like social networking because their students expect it; b) we need to use appropriate IT effectively, but not too much; c) and we need to keep the F2F, because the IT just doesn’t do it all.
While most respondents are enthusiastic IT users and use it to support many aspects of their academic lives, most prefer only a “moderate” amount of IT in their courses (59.3 percent). This finding has been consistent over the past three years’ studies, and students continue to tell us that they do not want technology to eclipse valuable face-toface interaction with instructors. (ECAR Research Study, P. 13)
The irritating thing about the report is that whoever wrote the Executive Summary doesn’t seem to get it. They start with that 1980s type of “the world is changing dramatically” hype which like any calling “wolf” ceases to work after a while. Here is the opening,
Chris Dede’s Introduction to this study argues that the ongoing technology revolution is driving a sea change in communicating, teaching, and learning. Further, while faculty and institutions have automated conventional forms of instruction and made some steps in using technology to expand the range of students’ academic experiences, we have barely scratched the surface. (p. 9)
The results reported, like those on the importance of face time, suggest that we have thoroughly scratched the surface and discovered that IT is only good for certain things. It helps learning, it is convenient, it adds a way of communicating, but it isn’t that engaging compared to a real face. When will EDUCAUSE give us cause to think they are capable of a balanced opinion on technology and education? Who believes that IT is necessarily going to change education any more?