Institutional effect of ICT on students in higher education

Author(s):

Nóra Barnucz(presenting / submitting)Imre Labancz

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

16. ICT in Education and Training

Format:

Paper

Session Information

16 SES 11 B, Students' Digital Competencies

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-25

17:15-18:45

Room:

OB-E2.38 (ALE 4)

Chair:

Philippe Gabriel

Contribution

An institutional effect research in higher education (hereinafter: HE) is organized by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Development - Hungary, the University of Debrecen. According to the earlier results studied by teachers, the main problem is that they have no competence in using information and communication technologies (hereinafter: ICT) for effective educational goals (Körösné, 2009). According to Zhang & Aikman, (2007) the lack of confidence, competence and available materials are expected to be the main obstacles in using ICT in education. The digital competence from key competences has a crucial importance in education. It means a confident use of ICT in respect to communication, spare time activities and also the use of computers (NAT 2007, p. 10.). The aim of HE is to educate students who can become successful employees as either teachers or they work in other areas of the labour-market. EU education policy proposals include that not only skill-based ICT use has to be acquired at different trainings (Molnár, 2011). Universities/colleges should take into account the rather increasingly digital demands of the labour market and the online communities have a greater use in the 21st century education. (Ollé, 2010). It is important that the world of the internet knowledge management is able to reflect in the educational methods of HE. Today, the use of computer is expected to be crucial in the process of lifelong learning, that is why teaching and learning by using different ICT would be an important role in public and HE as well (Felvégi, 2005; Coohalan, 2007). Ollé and et al (2013) claimed that the measure of using ICT does not depend on the age only it means the measure of browsing on the net which can correlate with age. The goal of our research is to study the institutional effect on students’ ICT competence and the integration of ICT into HE and last but not least the analysis of their advantages and disadvantages (Romeo, 2006, Grabe and Grabe (2007). According to Prensky (2001) the digital natives’ thinking differs significantly from those who did not grow up in the world of the internet. Palfrey – Gassel (2008) state that students in HE are involved in the „Y” generation regarding the digital nations list. According to Schumeister (2009) this generation should be called rather media-generation, because it uses media much more intensively than they feel like using it the most. Students have changed a lot and HE needs to take into account the appropriate treatment of the e-generation. It will be followed by the „Z” generation in HE soon. The possibilities of the digital competence has a crucial importance every level of education, because the generation is followed by the „Z” generation and it can be hard to believe for them, if their teachers cannot or do not want to use the different opportunities in education (García és Roblin, 2008). The application of ICT in education, positive effects of teaching and learning by using them can be experienced in public and HE as well. According to NAT (2007) we study how ICT are integrated in HE and how students like using them in their studies. The positive, beneficial and effective aspects are considered to be the results of inclusion in education which can follow the students’ demands, or they can use them for obtaining effective information and in their studies. Teachers in the future will have to exploit ICT effectively and keep the pace with the reforms. Therefore HE has to contribute to the development and of students’ ICT competence.

Method

In our research we tried to find the answer what factors the students are influenced by in order to be able to use their digital competence, how the result of institutional effect can be proved in their lives. We studied how students would like to prepare for their exams, how often they do their different university tasks on the Net, how much time they spend surfing on the net regularly and last but not least what ways of learning they keep the most effective. We wondered if we could find relations between the students’ learning activities by using ICT and some different explanatory variables (students’ sex, countries of the institutions, etc.). We tried to find and study the so-called conceptual samples, models by analysing different articles, which emphasised the role of ICT in education and their methodological basis or on the contrary their deficiency. The analysis was completed by quantitative and qualitative research. We studied the students’ effectiveness, the institutional value added and the students’ learning habits and features. Problem-observation of the respondents was analyzed by using focus-grouped interview to be able to study the impact of ICT more on their attainment. The questions were concentrated on the students’ experiences concerning the use of ICT, the different learning opportunities and obstacles. Our research is based on the database of IESA-TESSCEE (Institutional Impact on Student Achievement - A Teacher Education Students Survey in Central and Eastern Europe) and HERD2012 (Higher Education for Social Cohesion – Cooperative Research and Development in a Cross-border Area). The database (TESSCEE and IESA research) was combined and it includes N=1792 full-time students and n=635 teacher education students. The quantitative research was carried out within the SZAKTÁRNET project (TÁMOP- 4.1.2.B.2-13/1-2013-0009) coordinated by CHERD-Hungary (Centre for Higher Education Research and Development) at the University of Debrecen. The investigated area includes the Northern Great Plain region Hungary, Partium, Central Transylvania, Subcarpathia in Ukraine, and Vojvodina in Serbia. A HERD2012 was carried out within the (HURO/0901/253/2.2.2.) project in spring 2012. The participating institutions were the following: the University of Debrecen; Debrecen Reformed Theological University; the College of Nyíregyháza; Ferenc Rákóczi II. Transcarpathian Hungarian Institute, the Uzhhorod National University (Ungvár), Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences; the Off-site Faculty of Babeş-Bolyai University in Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti); (N=2728).

Expected Outcomes

There is no significant difference between the studied institutions in HE and the effect of ICT in learning and teaching. It was found that mostly the internet-based learning opportunities were used more by the students than the paper-based learning ones. Individually learning is kept more effective than in groups by the majority of students. We studied the institutional effect in the relationship between the departments of the institutions (over 100 respondents) and their students. Proportionally higher amount of ICT use was experienced in the case of the Hungarian than in the cross-border departments. It is concluded that students in HE use the internet mostly for getting, downloading information and materials for learning. They like learning from either copied documents or reading texts on a monitor. Majority of students in HE rarely surf the web pages of the university, search information concerning seminars and download materials from web pages. Women are more interested in the internet-based learning activities. But students rarely download professional materials from pay-web pages. The use of the internet depends on the sex of the students, the objective financial situation, the father’s school qualification, forms of education, the maintenance of the secondary school and if the student is a teacher education student or not. We could make three groups involving internet-based activities with factor-analysis. The first factor is called „Flow” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1997), including internet-based activities. The second one is called „Academic”, including HE activities. The third group is called „Facebook” including items of social networking sites. The „Academic” group strengthens the institutional effect relation to the use of ICT among students. The three factors were studied by logistic regression. Significant relationship can be shown between the sex of students, the Hungarian (without the University of Debrecen) and Subcarpathian HE institutions and the „Academic” factor group.

References

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Author Information

Nóra Barnucz (presenting / submitting)

The University of Debrecen

Debrecen

Imre Labancz

University of Debrecen