E-LEARNING NEEDS AMONG STUDENTS WHO LEAD A

DIGITAL LIFE IN NEARLY EVERY ASPECT EXCEPT

LEARNING

Paul Lam, Jack Lee, Mavis Chan and Carmel McNaught

Centre for Learning Enhancement and Research, Room 302, Academic Building No.1

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China

Keywords: Digital Natives, e-Learning Needs, e-Learning Strategies, Usefulness and Expectations.

Abstract: Students are able to use and are using many digital devices in their everyday life. The term “Net

Generation” is used to describe these young people who have been using digital devices such as computers,

cell phones and digital music players all their lives. Can we then assume that the Net Generation would

welcome the use of technology in learning just because they are digital natives? Our study focused on the

eLearning perceptions, needs and requests of students at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. We found

that students were generally positive (though not overly enthusiastic) towards various forms of eLearning

strategies.

1 ELEARNING STRATEGIES

INTRODUCTION

It is a common view that students are able to use and

are using a great deal of digital devices in their

everyday life. There are notions like „Net

Generation‟, „Digital Natives‟ or the „Y Generation‟

to describe these young people who have “spent

their entire lives surrounded by and using

computers, videogames, digital music players, video

cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of

the digital age” (Prensky, 2001, p. 1)

Studies in Australia (Kennedy et al., 2006a;

Kennedy et al., 2006b) in US (Kvavik, 2005;

Salaway, Caruso and Nelson, 2008) and in the UK

(Green and Hannon, 2007) in general confirm that

the vast majority of the students have ready access to

web-enabled personal computers and own personal

digital devices such as mobile phones. They also use

a wide range of digital features and web features in

their everyday life, for communication (emails, msn,

etc.) or for forming social networks (blogging,

facebook, etc.). . In a report produced by the Joint

Information Systems Committee (JISC, 2009),

digital natives were remarked to for example,

joining/ using social networking sites regularly and

having ability to recognize both the potential

benefits and limitations of applying new

technologies in academic areas. The findings were

comparable to those reported by the Joint

Information Systems Committee's (JISC, 2009).

Digital natives were found to join and use social

networking sites regularly. They were also able to

recognize the potential benefits of applying new

technologies in social and academic areas.

A recent study at The Chinese University of

Hong Kong (CUHK) (McNaught, Lam and Ho,

2009) illustrated that our students are also the Net

Generation and are „digitally ready‟, to a level that is

compatible to their counterparts in Australia. They

are very familiar with information and

communication technologies. For example, a vast

majority of the students have broadband internet

access and have mobile phones. Nearly all students

use digital methods to communicate. They use

emails, read and comment on blogs, and use social

networking software.

Technology can be regarded as providing a new

platform for teachers to improve their pedagogical

approaches or practice. Prensky (2007) warned that

many teachers may not be ready to take full

advantage of the new possibilities. But are the

students ready?.

There is no strong evidence that students‟ habits

of using technologies in their everyday lives can be

easily transferred to the adoption of new eLearning

habits. On the contrary, students do not seem to be

268

Lam P., Lee J., Chan M. and Mcnaught C. (2010).

E-LEARNING NEEDS AMONG STUDENTS WHO LEAD A DIGITAL LIFE IN NEARLY EVERY ASPECT EXCEPT LEARNING.

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 268-275

 SciTePress

committed to eLearning. There are reported

challenges in the use of technology in teaching and

learning even from the students‟ point of view.

Many eLearning strategies lack students‟ support

(McNaught et al., 2006). Bullen and Janes (2007)

pointed out that our students are yet in receiving

mode and lack of independent thinking and learning.

A recent study at CUHK concerning students‟

perception of mobile eBook technology (Lam, Lam,

Lam and McNaught, 2009) indicated that eBooks

are not yet a useful and practical tool for academic

learning. While students who were first introduced

to the technology in generally gave us positive

comments about the technology, those who actually

spent more time on it were much less enthusiastic.

They raised concerns with many aspects of the

technology (such as the slow processes of finding

and downloading eBooks, the hardware, and the

reading process itself). Despite the fact that students

are able to use digital devices for many tasks in their

daily lives, they can be conservative and hesitant

when it comes to the adoption of a certain eLearning

strategy.

Thus, other than persuading teachers to use the

technology in teaching and learning (which seems to

be the main focus of many eLearning support

services to date), we need to learn about the needs

and perceptions of the students about how the

technology might support their learning. There may

be novelty effects when students first come across a

new technology, but they are very pragmatic and

they will soon abandon new methods if the expected

benefits do not occur or they find the methods do not

meet their needs.

When studying students‟ needs, multiple

eLearning strategies need to be considered,

including those that are relatively well established

and those that are new. Such strategies can facilitate

„autonomous learning‟, „cooperative learning‟ and

„multimedia resources‟ (Liaw, Huang and Chen,

2007). Furthermore, students need to be encouraged

to express their wishes for longer-term development

of eLearning.

The teaching and learning functions of the web

can be grouped into basic categories. Adapting the

model used in McNaught (2002), we identified

eLearning strategies into the following broad

categories. We acknowledge that in reality a teacher

usually engage students in an eLearning activity that

combines one or more of these functions.

1. Technology can be used to facilitate teaching and

learning in the classroom.

2. Websites can provide support functions for

teaching and learning, such as providing course

information to students, making online course-

related announcements, and giving help on

learning tips and learning skills, etc. Students use

them as study management tools.

3. Learning resources can be hosted on the web.

Students can access learning materials (ranging

from plain text, graphics, pictures or multimedia

to interactive self-learning exercises) for self-

paced learning.

4. There are communication-rich eLearning

strategies using email, forums, chat-rooms, or

video-conferencing. These activities facilitate

teacher-student communications, for example,

students asking teachers in a forum rather than

having to ask questions face-to-face.

5. There are communication-rich eLearning

strategies that facilitate student-student

interactions. Using forums or other tools,

students discuss with each other or cooperate

online to complete group writing or projects.

Different eLearning strategies may be related to

different learning benefits. Interaction may be one

way to understand the learning potential of various

strategies. Interaction is central to learning in a

constructivist model of learning (Lam, Csete and

Hodgson, 2007). Learning benefits from an

interactive learning environment, as feedback and

reflection effectively assist knowledge construction

(O‟Connor, 1998). Interaction comes in many

different forms. Swan (2003) explained interaction

as the “reciprocal events involving at least two

actors and/or objects and at least two actions in

which the actors, objects, and events mutually

influence each other” (p. 4). She sees that eLearning

is able to facilitate at least three main kinds of

learning-enhancing interaction: interaction with

content, with instructors, and with peers.

e-Learning strategies that have the potential to

facilitate enriched interactions (e.g. the

communication strategies that involve human

interactions on complex issues), therefore, can be

more promising than strategies that mainly involve

students to interact with web content and/or course

materials only.

Despite the significant potential benefits to

teaching and learning, the comparatively more

interactive types of eLearning strategies tend to be

less used by university teachers. A series of studies

at CUHK show that, while the percentage of

supplementary online course websites has grown a

great deal from ~45% in 2003–04 to over 80% in

2008–09, the web continues to be mostly seen as a

convenient storage house for easy distribution of

course materials to students, often using existing

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basic functions in learning management systems

(LMSs), such as WebCT and Moodle. Most

communications are done through online forums

with simple designs which are not very active;

students, on average, post only one to three

messages (McNaught et al., 2006; McNaught and

Lam, 2009).

In an earlier study of students‟ eLearning needs

and expectations, McNaught and Lam (2005) noted

“the following four most functions as being

effective: learning tools such as glossaries, notes and

PowerPoints, assessment tasks associated with

grades, and creation and exhibition of multimedia

projects. In a highly competitive, examination-

oriented system, the first three are not surprising. If

we want a broader use of the web in university

courses, the nature of the curriculum must change,

with the confluence of educational, cultural and

political factors that are involved. The perceived

value of students creating and exhibiting their own

work in multimedia form is heartening, in that it

indicated a highly active form of web use. The low

perceived value of online discussions is likely to be

due to a multiplicity of factors and for those of who

believe in the potential value of this use of the web,

the challenge continues…” (p. 614).

At present, many of the success stories about

innovative eLearning strategies in the literature are

cases of pioneering teachers who are „early adopters‟

(Rogers, 2003) testing the teaching and learning

technologies in isolated courses in which certain

positive results have been achieved. Apart from

these pioneering cases most other teachers in the

„mainstream majority‟ (Anderson, Varnhagen and

Campbell, 1998) use quite simple eLearning

strategies.

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

(Davis, Bagozzi and Warsaw, 1989; Liaw et al.,

2007) suggests that students‟ perceptions have at

least the following components: the perceived ease

of use and the perceived usefulness, which in turn

are related to students‟ perceived intention to use,

(or the real use if the strategies have been widely

used). Perceived usefulness is thus a major factor in

governing the use of eLearning strategies. Under the

circumstances, we believe that a more detailed study

is needed on students‟ perceptions, not only towards

eLearning in general, but also towards various types

of eLearning strategies.

2 STUDY

We adopted a relatively board definition of “e-Lear-

ning strategy” in our study. It refers to the use of any

kind if internet or communication service or

electronic device that supports learning activities”

(Conole et al., 2006; p. 513) Thus, the use of the

web as a source of information for learning is

regarded as an eLearning strategy. a questionnaire

was designed and different eLearning aspects were

investigated. The survey went through a number of

iterations mainly to narrow down the scales that are

crucial to the study, cut short the number of items

and ensure clarity of language. The survey in its

final form had a total of 62 questions (60 multiple-

choice questions and 2 open-ended questions) with

the following three components:

1. Use of Technology

In the first section, we aimed at finding out the

various types of technologies students used in their

everyday lives (e.g. for information searching or for

communication, etc).

2. Use and Usefulness of e-Learning Strategies

In the second part, we studied the use of technology

in the teaching and learning context. How often did

students use a variety of eLearning strategies? We

asked about a variety of eLearning strategies, such

as using the web as a source of information, teaching

and learning through online communication, and the

use of multimedia to enrich teaching, etc.

3. Benefits of using e-Learning

In the last section of the questionnaire, we asked the

students about the learning benefits of using

eLearning strategies. These potential benefits

included more than understanding content

knowledge. We also asked about improvement in

learning motivation, attitude, information

management, communication skills, etc.

From April to May 2009 we developed the

survey into an online questionnaire using software

“FeedBack Server®”. Administration of the survey

was carried out from June to August 2009.

Invitations to complete the online questionnaire

were sent to all undergraduate students (total 10,768

students). Two reminders were sent to the students

in mid-July and early August respectively.

When the questionnaire closed in mid-August,

1438 responses had been collected, response rate

being 13.4%. Gender was quite well balanced, with

45% males and 55% females. We also had roughly

the same number of Year 1, 2 and 3 students

(roughly 400 each). Students responded were quite

well distributed across all the eight faculties in the

University (Arts, Business Administration,

Education, Engineering, Law, Medicine, Science

and Social Science – ranging from 10% to 21% of

the student population of that faculty).

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3 FINDINGS

The survey data enriched our understanding of

students‟ use of technology in general, their use of

technology for teaching and learning, and their

expectations of a number of eLearning strategies.

The following are some of our preliminary findings.

Analysis is ongoing and we will focus on comparing

students‟ opinions in various disciplines, as well as

comparing opinions of university and school

students using data from a parallel survey in a

number of local Hong Kong schools.

3.1 Use of Technology

Table 1 shows a number of common uses of

technology and their descriptions provided on the

survey.

Table 1: Technologies used by students.

Strategy

More explanation

Online movie

clips

Use the web browser to watch online

movie clips (e.g. YouTube).

Read postings

Join discussion forum and read forum

postings.

Forum

Participate actively in forum discussions.

Webpage

creation

Create simple text web-pages.

Multimedia

files

Use the internet to broadcast multimedia

file/ upload video files onto internet.

Use Email system.

Instant

messaging

Use instant messenger to communicate

with friends or public

Video

conferencing

Use video conference to communicate with

friends or public.

Social

networking

Use social networking website and

communicate with others (e.g. Facebook,

MySpace).

Blogs

Create blog(s) for keeping track of

personal journals.

Figure 1 shows the responses of the students

concerning how frequently they used these various

technologies in their everyday lives. An interesting

thing to note is that the students reported using a

great deal of eCommunication strategies: e.g. emails,

blogs, discussion forums, multimedia-rich

communications and instant messaging. We found

that students are quite able to use technology for

communication. Around 90% of respondents

reported using instant messaging frequently (at least

several times a week). Around 60% of them use

discussion forums frequently too. The use of blogs

and other media-rich strategies are less common but

are still used by 20% to 40% of students.

Figure 1: Use of technology in general by students, bars

showing frequent uses only.

3.2 Use and Usefulness of e-Learning

Strategies

Figure 2 shows i) how much students use a number

of eLearning strategies at present, and ii) how useful

they think these strategies would be to their learning

regardless of whether they are using them or not. We

focused on a number of types of eLearning

strategies: e.g. classroom technology, self-learning

strategy, provision of learning resources, and using

technology to facilitate communications, etc. (Table

2).

The findings indicate that while many of the

eLearning strategies are not frequently used at the

moment (except using the web as source of

information), many of the students have high

expectations of these strategies. For example,

students felt that various forms of eCommunication

can assist learning a great deal but they are not

communicating this way often.

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Table 2: e-Learning strategy types and the questions

asked.

Types

Items for typical eLearning strategies

Computers in class

Teachers use multimedia materials (e.g.

movie, sounds, animation) to assist

teaching.

Computers in class

Teachers use/ show webpages in class

to illustrate concepts and knowledge.

Computers as

students‟ study

tool

I find additional and relevant

information from the internet to help

school work.

Computers as

students‟ study

tool

I include multimedia files (e.g. pictures,

sounds, movie clips or animation) in

my class assignments.

Computers as

learning resources

There are websites for the courses

where I can conveniently find notes and

learning resources of the subject.

Computers as

learning resources

Teachers ask students to complete

online quizzes.

Computers for

teacher-student

talk

Teachers communicate with (e.g. via

email) and provide out-of-class

guidance that help me to think again

what I have learned.

Computers for

teacher-student

talk

Teachers act as a moderator and

discuss with students at bulletin board

system (BBS) or forum.

Computers for

student-student

talk

The web provides a platform for

students to share knowledge and

express their opinions (e.g. discussion

forum) regarding courses.

Computers for

student-student

talk

I often join social community

groups that are related to my studies

and discuss subject issues with the

public.

Figure 2: Use of technology for learning by students, bars

showing frequent uses only.

3.3 Types of Benefits

A number of learning outcomes were targeted in this

section. Table 3 shows the themes we targeted and a

sample question we asked related to each theme.

Table 3: Learning outcomes asked and sample questions.

Learning outcomes

Sample questions asked

Motivation and attitude

The eLearning strategies

improve my attitude to

learning.

Information management

It improves my skills in

searching for relevant

information.

Understanding

fundamental concepts and

acquiring knowledge

It helps me to understand the

subject materials deeply.

Deep approach

eLearning strategies help me to

integrate knowledge to solve

real-life problems.

Enjoyment

eLearning strategies raise my

interest on the subjects.

Communication skills

It promotes discussion and

improves communication with

teachers or classmates.

Group work spirit

I feel more confident in dealing

with others because of the

interactions on the web.

Figure 3 shows students‟ perception of types of

benefits that can might be associated with the use of

eLearning in general. The data indicate that students

were on the whole more confident about the effect of

eLearning on acquisition of knowledge. They are

less certain about the effect of the strategies on the

other learning outcomes such as learning attitudes

and various learning skills. Students may not be able

to appreciate eLearning fully especially because of

their limited experience with it.

Figure 3: Students‟ expectation of learning outcomes

related to eLearning.

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4 DISCUSSION

The study so far revealed that students had relatively

high expectations of eLearning strategies and their

benefits. The data collected was revealing in a

number of ways:

1. While most of the students used computers for a

variety of purposes, they used it extensively for

social networking and communication.

2. Students had limited experience of eLearning

strategies but the expected usefulness of using

these strategies was high.

3. Students could relate eLearning strategies to

many different kinds of learning benefits

(acquisition of knowledge being the most

obvious one).

We confirmed in this study that students used

digital devices for many kinds of online activities in

their everyday lives. They are clearly digital natives

in that they have access to digital devices, use

technology for long periods every day for various

activities, and have no problem using and learning to

use new technologies. Most of the students used

computers for a variety of purposes. Of most interest

was the fact that they used it extensively for social

networking and communication. The Web is no

longer a place for information only but is becoming

more and more prominently a place for networking.

The use of social networking software such as

Facebook and MySpace was prominent with more

than 85% of the students using social networking

several times a week. The use of instant messaging

tools for communication was even more intense with

more than 90% of the students using the tools

several times a week or more.

Comparatively, the teaching and learning

environment at the University is far less digital.

Students reported they had limited experience in

most eLearning strategies, except the simple usage

about storage of course-related information (about

74% of the students used it often or a lot) or course

notes (about 69% used it often or a lot) on a course

website. At the same time, these strategies were also

remarked by nearly 90% of the students as being

useful to learning.

The students nevertheless saw huge potential in

using eCommunication for teaching and learning.

Students on the whole favoured the use of

eCommunication for teaching and learning (77%

found eCommunication to teachers useful, 52%

favoured teacher-student communications in forums,

and 68% regarded student-student interactions

useful). We can easily associate this with the habit

identified above that students are already using the

Web very frequently for communications. This

might be the area where students‟ digital experiences

in their everyday lives transfer to the education

settings.

Despite students‟ lack of experience with a wide

range of eLearning strategies, the expected

usefulness of using a number of other strategies was

high. For example, many students favoured more use

of technology in the classroom context: about 80%

of the students considered that multimedia would be

useful and nearly 60% of the students regarded the

showing of webpages as helpful in explaining

concepts in a class.

However, we also found that students were not

overly enthusiastic about all the eLearning

strategies. They were particularly cautious about

strategies such as online quizzes and learning

communities in which they had very limited

experiences. On the whole, students‟ attitudes

towards eLearning were positive. Their lack of

experiences seemed to be one of the reasons that

made them less eager in the more complex

strategies. ,

In general, students had high hopes for eLearning

strategies to achieve learning outcomes. At present,

however, they found the acquisition/ understanding

of knowledge, and access to information as the most

obvious benefits. They were less certain about the

other potential: e.g. deeper understanding of

knowledge and learning skill acquisition. This is not

surprising as most of the students had not

experienced eLearning strategies that were designed

with these purposes in mind (as noted, the most

common strategies used were to deliver course

information and course notes on the web). With that

in mind, our students actually had high expectations

about what eLearning is able to achieve beyond

merely knowledge and information.

As suggested early on the paper, we cannot

assume students will welcome more use of

technology in learning without reservations. The use

of the more complicated (but potentially more

educationally useful) eLearning strategies is limited

and students‟ opinions of them were also cautious.

However, we found students very optimistic about

using eCommunication to assist teaching and

learning. The research led to implications to future

studies about students‟ views on eLearning. For

example, we are planning to interview groups of

students about possible uses of eLearning in their

classes/ courses. Also, it would be useful to learn,

from the students‟ perspective, the types how

technologies can support them to overcome current

learning difficulties.

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5 CONCLUSIONS

A study was conducted systematically to investigate

the expectations and needs of various eLearning

strategies by students in Hong Kong. Although the

response rate was not high (13.4%), there were 1438

valid replies and the students who replied had good

representation across all faculties.

The findings tend to suggest that students are on

the whole open to innovation. They seem to desire

more eLearning strategies than they are experiencing

at present. Teachers can obviously consider the use

of eCommunication strategies in their teaching.

There was also a certain degree of cautiousness in

students‟ replies, particularly when they were asked

to comment on less commonly used strategies. As a

consequence it seems wise to introduce uncommon

innovations with caution.

Overall, students affirmed the growing use of

e-Learning at CUHK and clearly appear to

encourage teachers to use more eCommunication

strategies. In order to encourage both teachers and

students to consider additional options is the next

challenge we face. At present our teachers are

„mainstream‟ in the use of basic content-oriented

eLearning but we are still at „early-adopter stage‟ for

more interactive eLearning strategies. We will be

able to use the results of this survey to nudge our

University a little further along the path towards

optimal use of eLearning.

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