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Undergraduate Technology Use and Attitudes
A new addition to Edinburgh Datashare
This new dataset - the outcome of A Survey of Undergraduate Technology Use and Attitudes, conducted in March 2011 by Dr Hamish Macleod (Dept of Higher & Community Education) and Dr Jessie Paterson (School of Divinity) - has just been added to the University data repository, hosted by the Data Library.
This study was the result of an award from ELESIG (Evaluation of Learners' Experience of eLearning Special Interest Group), which gave Dr Macleod and Dr Paterson an opportunity to continue the long and successful collection of information about how students at the University of Edinburgh view ICT.
This work, which originated in the 1990s, had lapsed in recent years due to data collection issues. In the second semester of the 2010-2011 academic session a paper questionnaire targeted first and second year students from across the University, resulting in 580 responses.
A number of interesting findings were made which include the following:
- Some students still find IT challenging.
- Although laptop ownership is high, some students do not seem to be planning to carry their laptops to the campus.
- Facebook appears to be used significantly for academic purposes.
The dataset and documentation may be accessed from the Vice Principal’s Office collection within the Information Services community on the DataShare website:
or directly:
(Image credit: Thinkin’ about the code courtesy of Ed Yourdon on Flickr)
This article was published on Nov 23, 2012