In the context of ongoing CERI work on higher education, this document addresses three questions. First, can the claim that today\u2019s higher education students are new millennium learners be sustained empirically? Second, is there research evidence demonstrating the effects of technology adoption on cognitive development, social values, and learning expectations? Third, how are higher education institutions coping with the widely assumed teaching and learning implications of the emergence of the new millennium learners?

Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)
Directorate for Education, OECD
2 rue Andr\u00e9 Pascal
75775 Paris Cedex 16, France
Tel: +33 (0) 1 45 24 80 83; Fax +33 (0) 1 44 30 63 94

Introduction..................................................................................................................................................4\ue000
Challenging the concept of the new millennium learners............................................................................5\ue000
A powerful image.....................................................................................................................................5\ue000
A research challenge................................................................................................................................6\ue000
How far are higher education students new millennium learners?..............................................................6\ue000
A whole generational phenomenon?........................................................................................................7\ue000
Are they really acting as new millennium learners?..............................................................................11\ue000
What is technology used for?.................................................................................................................13\ue000
Not all higher education students are equally new millennium learners................................................15\ue000
Implications on learning and learning expectations...................................................................................17\ue000
Alternative cognitive skills.....................................................................................................................17\ue000
Changes in cultural practices and social values.....................................................................................19\ue000
Expectations regarding teaching and learning........................................................................................20\ue000
How far are higher education institutions responding to the emergence of new millennium learners?....25\ue000
Technology adoption by higher education institutions..............................................................................25\ue000
Institutional policies and developments regarding technology in teaching............................................26\ue000
Teachers\u2019 response.................................................................................................................................28\ue000
Differences across countries...................................................................................................................30\ue000
Conclusions and a look ahead....................................................................................................................33\ue000

Figure 1.\ue000 Internet use by level of education............................................................................................7\ue000 Figure 2.\ue000 Internet use by age group.........................................................................................................8\ue000 Figure 3.\ue000 Home access to computers......................................................................................................9\ue000 Figure 4.\ue000 Use of particular applications weekly or more often.............................................................11\ue000 Figure 5.\ue000 Type of digital devices owned by students............................................................................12\ue000 Figure 6.\ue000 Number of different types of digital devices owned.............................................................13\ue000 Figure 7.\ue000 Different profiles of new millennium learners in higher education.......................................16\ue000 Figure 8.\ue000