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Assignment 2

Student’s Name

Student’s Number

Course Name & Number

Instructor’s Name

Date
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In this assignment, you are required to develop an 800-word critical comparison of two articles.

Use the following two articles for your critical comparison essay. Make sure your essay is

formatted in the proper APA style.

Jones, C., & Healing, G. (2010). Net generation students: Agency and choice and the new

technologies. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 344-356. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-

2729.2010.00370.x

Net generation students: agency and choice and the new technologies

Abstract

Based on research investigating English first-year university students, this paper examined the

case made for a new generation of young learners often described as the Net Generation or

Digital Natives in terms of agency and choice. Generational arguments set out a case that links

young people’s attitudes and orientations to their lifelong exposure to networked and digital

technologies. This paper drew on interview data from mixed methods research to suggest that the

picture is more complex than the equation of exposure to new technologies and a generational

change of attitudes and capacities. Starting from the position that interaction with technology is

mediated by activity and an intentional stance, we examined the choices students make with

regard to the technologies they engage with. We explored the perceived constraints students face

and the way they either comply or resist such constraints. We concluded that agency actively

shapes student engagement with technology but that an adequate conception of agency must

expand beyond the person and the self to include notions of collective agency identifying the

meso level as an activity system that mediates between the students and their technological

setting.
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Discussion and conclusion

The Net Generation and Digital Native arguments rest on a simplistic form of causality

suggesting that technological change in the world leads to changes in attitudes, and even brain

function as well as behaviour. This kind of argument is not new and generational metaphors have

been used repeatedly to capture a sense of shifts in culture, from baby boomers to millenials

(Howe & Strauss 1991). In popular use, such overgeneralizations are largely benign, but when

they become an accepted and an even received wisdom, they hold dangers. Policy-makers make

use of generational metaphors to describe future intakes of students and to frame plans for the

development of educational infrastructures. Teachers begin to design their courses for a

presumed audience of Net Generation students. Czerniewicz et al. (2009) argued that ‘The

particular value of Archer’s work is her interest in the relation between agency and structure

from the perspective of the agent, or the person’ (Czerniewicz et al. 2009, p. 83). The research

we have conducted illustrates the way in which the structural conditions that students face at

university are, to some degree, outcomes of collective agency, and we suggest expanding the

notion of the agent to include persons acting not on their own behalf but enacting roles in

collective organizations such as courses, departments, schools and universities. We showed how

staff members design and redesign courses in relation to available technologies and how the

availability of the technologies themselves is an outcome of decisions and actions taken

elsewhere in the university. Sibeon (2004) had suggested that accounts of agency and structure

would be improved by the inclusion of levels beyond the binary of macro and micro. Following

Ashwin (2009) and Sibeon (2004), we argue that aspects of both structure and agency are at play

at all levels of scale and suggest that the inclusion of meso levels would help our understanding

of students’ engagement with new technologies at university. We argue that we need a notion of
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agency in which agency is conceived of as being active at all levels and in which agency is an

emergent property at each level. For example, the agency of a teacher designing a course cannot

be reduced to the personal agency of the individual nor can the design of a VLE be attributed to

broad macro forces that are simply acted out a local level. Individual students are also acting in

settings that have increasing amounts of active technologies that replicate aspects of human

agency. Increasingly, the digital networks through which education is mediated are able to

become interactive, for example, being capable of providing educationally relevant

recommendations (see for example http://open.ac.uk/blogs/sociallearn). We also report that

distraction is already caused by the intervention of automated processes such as notifications

from social networking sites. While Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006) may be correct in arguing that

there is not a complete symmetry between human and machine agency, there is an increasing

likelihood that students will interact with humans and machines in similar ways. Czerniewicz et

al. (2009, p. 86) showed clearly how ‘students are influenced by, but not determined by, the

barriers they face’. Their research shows how students make exceptional efforts to overcome

their disadvantages with regard to technology. Our research in a more advantaged setting would

endorse their general conclusion that student activity interacts with the availability of technology.

We have argued that our research shows how agency cannot be restricted or reduced to the

person. Social roles exist beyond the person and do not simply rely on the motives and

motivation of individual selves; they are enforced by collective sanctions that can be physical,

economic and moral. In our research, we see students providing accounts of how their judgement

of the reliability of sources rests on what they are told by academic staff, enforced in assessment

regimes and sanctions in terms of what is and is not acceptable academic practice. Czerniewicz

et al. (2009), following Archer, saw the process as an interplay between social situations and the
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personal projects of agents (p. 87). We argue that it is better understood as part of an activity

system within which subjects try to achieve their objects but in which the activity system cannot

be reduced to individuals and their goal-directed actions.

Margaryan, A., Littlejohn, A., & Vojt, G. (2011). Are digital natives a myth or reality? University

students’ use of digital technologies. Computers & Education, 56, 429-440. doi:

10.1016/j.compedu.2010.09.004

Are digital natives a myth or reality? University students’ use of digital technologies

Abstract

This study investigated the extent and nature of university students’ use of digital technologies

for learning and socialising. The findings show that students use a limited range of mainly

established technologies. Use of collaborative knowledge creation tools, virtual worlds, and

social networking sites was low. ‘Digital natives’ and students of a technical discipline

(Engineering) used more technology tools when compared to ‘digital immigrants’ and students of

a non-technical discipline (Social Work). This relationship may be mediated by the finding that

Engineering courses required more intensive and extensive access to technology than Social

Work courses. However, the use of technology between these groups is only quantitatively rather

than qualitatively different. The study did not find evidence to support popular claims that young

people adopt radically different learning styles. Their attitudes to learning appear to be

influenced by lecturers’ teaching approaches. Students appear to conform to traditional

pedagogies, albeit with minor uses of tools delivering content. The outcomes suggest that

although the calls for transformations in education may be legitimate it would be misleading to
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ground the arguments for such change in students’ shifting patterns of learning and technology

use.

Discussion

Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) emphasise that to be considered a mixed-method design,

findings must be integrated during the interpretation of the results. Therefore, the discussion is

structured around key themes arising from both the quantitative and qualitative phases.

6.1. Technology adoption is influenced by complex interdependencies Findings indicate that both

in case of learning and socialising students who were ‘digital natives’ and those who were

enrolled in a technical subject (Engineering) used more tools than ‘digital immigrants’ and

students of a non-technical discipline (Social Work). However, the tools these students used were

largely established technologies, in particular mobile phones, media player, Google, Wikipedia.

The use of handheld computers as well as gaming, social networking sites, blogs and other

emergent social technologies was very low. This finding is consistent with the results of other

studies, in particular Bullen et al. (2008), Jones and Cross (2009), and Kennedy et al. (2008).

Students’ reluctance to use personal, mobile devices illustrates that they are far from being

‘constantly connected’ and may be a reflection of a complex mix of cost considerations as well

as simply not wanting to be always connected. Our findings also suggest that students’

technology use may be mediated by use of technology on university courses. Based on these

results, we can conclude there is a complex relationship between age, subject, the extent of

technology use and the university’s promotion of using digital technology in learning.

6.2. Students’ expectations of learning are influenced by lecturers’ approaches to teaching Our

study found no evidence to support previous claims suggesting that current generation of
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students adopt radically learning styles, exhibit new forms of literacies, use digital technologies

in sophisticated ways, or have novel expectations from higher education. Our findings show that,

regardless of age and subject discipline, students’ attitudes to learning appear to be influenced by

the teaching approaches used by lecturers. This finding is of course not novel: a qualitative

relationship between the lecturer’s teaching methods and students’ learning approaches was

established through earlier empirical studies. Trigwell, Prosser, and Waterhouse (1999)

demonstrated that, when teachers taught using methods focused on a knowledge transmission

paradigm, students were more likely to adopt a surface approach to learning. Furthermore,

Virtanen and Lindblom-Ylänne (2009) emphasised that a learning approach is not a fixed student

characteristic and that the same student can adopt different approaches in different context and

even in different situations within the same context. They urged teachers to be aware of how

approaches to teaching can affect students’ approaches to learning. These results, coupled with

our finding that technology use by lecturers may be a mediating variable (see Section 6.1)

suggest that technology adoption is not a simple binary relationship, but is a complex

phenomenon. Our study showed that far from demanding lecturers change their practice, students

appear to conform to fairly traditional pedagogies, albeit with minor uses of technology tools that

deliver content. In fact students’ emphasised that they expected to be “taught” in traditional

ways. On this basis, previous claims of a growing and uniform generation of young students

entering higher education with radically different expectations about how they will learn seem

unwarranted. There is little evidence in our study that lecturers have a clear understanding of

ways in which technologies could support effective learning. While some lecturers recognize the

educational potential of some technologies, others view these as “fads”. While many staff we

interviewed experimented with different technologies, their focus was mostly on established
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tools and methods, such as VLE, classroom voting systems and online quizzes. The majority of

staff did not have first-hand experience of using emergent social technologies. While both

Engineering and Social Work staff emphasised personal attitudes and open mindset towards

experimentation with new technologies as key factors impacting adoption of tools within

teaching, a limited understanding of the potential application of tools and reluctance to change

teaching practice were observed.

6.3. Students have a limited understanding of how technology may support learning Although

lecturers cited students’ expectations as a driving force for changing teaching practice, students

do not appear to have a frame of reference of leading-edge approaches to technology-enhanced

learning to benchmark their current learning experiences against. Previous research has shown

that students’ expectations of learning at university appear to be influenced more by prior

experience of learning in formal situations than by students’ personal use of technology outside

educational settings, for instance for informal learning or socialising (Littlejohn, Margaryan, &

Vojt, 2010). Furthermore, previous research indicated that students expect technology-enhanced

learning methods to reflect conventional learning and that these students may be uncomfortable

with the application of social technologies in educational contexts (Carey, Harris, Smith, &

Warren, 2009; Harris, Warren, Leigh, & Ashleigh, 2010). Our data does not support the

suggestion that young students exhibit radically different learning styles. Instead, our findings

suggest a deficit of learning literacies and a dependency on guidance from lecturers amongst

students. Conventional forms of teaching appear to encourage students to passively consume

information. 438 A. Margaryan et al. / Computers & Education 56 (2011) 429–440 7.

Conclusions, limitations and future research

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This explorative study aimed to provide a snapshot of the extent and nature of students’ use

digital technologies and their perceptions of the educational value of these technologies. The

results lead us to conclude that students may not have the characteristics of epitomic global,

connected, socially-networked technologically-fluent ‘digital natives’. Students in our sample

appear to favour conventional, passive and linear forms of learning and teaching. Indeed, their

expectations of integration of digital technologies in teaching focus around the use of established

tools within conventional pedagogies. Compared to ‘digital immigrants’ and Social Work

students, ‘natives’ and Engineering students use more tools in formal and informal learning and

socialising. This relationship appears to be mediated by more extensive use of technology in

Engineering courses as compared to Social Work courses. The use of technology between these

groups, however, is only quantitatively rather than qualitatively different. While students

generally have expertise in the use of some (largely conventional) technology tools that

sometimes exceed lecturers’ abilities, their understanding of how to use these tools for learning is

limited by their knowledge of the potential affordances and applications of these tools and by

their narrow expectations of learning in higher education. Students have limited understanding of

what tools they could adopt and how to support their own learning. These findings challenge the

proposition that young people have sophisticated technology skills, providing empirically-based

insights into the validity of this assertion. The outcomes of our study suggest that, although calls

for radical transformations in education may be legitimate, it would be misleading to ground the

arguments for such change in students’ shifting patterns of learning and technology use. Our

study has some limitations which must be considered when interpreting the results. Firstly, the

survey and interview samples are small and may not be fully representative of the overall group

of students and lecturers at the two participating universities. However, these findings are largely
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consistent with other similar studies in the UK and elsewhere, suggesting that the sample is not

entirely unrepresentative. Secondly, since the sample is skewed towards ‘digital natives’ and

Engineering students, it is difficult to make any separate assertions regarding subject or age

differences. In any case, as the data reveals, differences in technology use may not be due to any

one of these two factors, but could be a more complex phenomenon. Using an age- or a

discipline-based dichotomy is perhaps not a useful approach for describing and understanding

students’ use of technologies to support their learning. Thirdly, our data was collected in 2007,

and the patterns of technology use may have changed since then. For example, Bebo and

MySpace have been largely replaced by Facebook. However, the more recent studies, for

example Hargittai (2010), Jones and Cross (2009) and Nagler and Ebner (2009) are uncovering

practices and results very similar to ours, suggesting that it is unlikely that the patterns of

technology use have changed dramatically. Future research on students’ use of technologies for

learning could focus on a number of directions. Firstly, it could take into consideration a broader

range of variables rather than only age and subject discipline. Relevant variables include the

pedagogic design of courses, socio-economic background of students, their life circumstances,

for example geographic proximity to friends and family, general sociability (extroversion,

introversion) and so forth. Secondly, it would be useful to conduct a meta-study comparing and

contrasting the increasing number of empirical studies on the topic. Understanding the nature and

causes of the similarities and differences in the conclusions drawn from these studies would

require a systematic approach comparing the characteristics of the samples, methodologies and

measurement instruments used as well as the contexts in which these studies took place. In terms

of educational practice and policy making, we concur with the view voiced by Kennedy et al.

(2008) who recommended that “educators and administrators should look to the evidence about
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what technologies students have access to and what their preferences are. to inform both policy

and practice” (p. 10). We further suggest that decisions surrounding the use of technologies for

learning should not only be based around students’ preferences and current practices, even if

properly evidenced, but on a deep understanding of what the educational value of these

technologies is and how they improve the process and the outcomes of learning. This cannot be

achieved without faculty actively experimenting with different technologies in their teaching to

evaluate the educational effectiveness of the technologies tools in practice and, most importantly,

publishing the results of such experimental evaluative studies such that the field benefits from an

improved understanding.

As you will see in these articles, the concept of “digital natives/immigrants” proposed by Marc

Prensky, whose argument we have worked with in the lessons in Unit 2, is a much-debated topic

by scholars in education and technology. The authors of these articles come into conversations

with Prensky’s argument in various ways.

You must submit your planning documents with your final essay. To create these documents, use

the Reverse Outline Template, Critical Thinking Questions, and Identifying Issues and Debate

Template discussed in Unit 2 to develop your critical comparison essay.

The following seven documents are required in addition to the final draft of your critical

comparison essay:

1. Critical comparison outline

2. Critical thinking questions – Article #1

3. Critical thinking questions – Article #2

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4. Identifying issues and debates – Article #1

5. Identifying issues and debates – Article #2

6. Reverse outline – Article #1

7. Reverse outline – Article #2

Provide a critical comparison of the two articles