College Students Worry About Time

Academics are not the only thing keeping college students up at night. A new survey of more than 1,500 undergrads currently enrolled in a two- or four-year institution found that 36% of respondents said time management and 35% identified anxiety as the key factors keeping them from a diploma.

Students also listed being overwhelmed with managing responsibilities (31%) and working too many hours (24%) to pay for school as other factors. The survey results may be the tip of the iceberg since so many nontraditional students are heading to college.

“We have a lot of students with very complicated lives and they have broader issues,” said Mark Milliron, co-founder and chief learning officer of Civitas Learning, which did the study. “Trying to design the right kind of advising support is going to mean a level of diversification and a level of personalization.”

Advising is becoming much more important to students. The study noted that 40% ranked information on career options after graduation and on staying on track to finish a degree as the highest types of advice they should receive. Time management and academic success strategies were listed by 33% of the respondents.

Students Need Skills, Not Standardized Tests

A new survey by Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) International found that the American public wants schools to teach their children career skills and to limit standardized testing. A majority of Americans also oppose using public funds to send students to private schools.

According to the 2017 Poll of the Public’s AttitudeToward the Public Schools, 82% of respondents support job or career skill classes, even if it means spending less time on traditional academics. More than 85% said schools should offer certificate or licensing programs that help students land jobs after graduation, while 82% said technology and engineering classes should be part of the curriculum.

However, just 42% said standardized testing was important and 52% oppose school voucher programs. That figure rises to 61% when religious schools are mentioned.

“These and other results suggest that some of the most prominent ideas that dominate current policy debates—from supporting vouchers to emphasizing high-stakes tests—are out of step with parents’ main concerns,” said Joshua P. Starr, CEO of PDK International, which has conducted the survey since 1969. “They want their children prepared for life and career after they complete high school.”

MOOCs Can Rely Too Much on Social Media

A recent Australian study found concerns about integrating too much social media into massive open online courses (MOOCs). Carpe Diem, a MOOC offered in 2014, used Facebook and Twitter for online communication and collaboration, but about half of the course participants didn’t use either.

According to the study,  41% refused to use social media because they felt it blurred the line between their social and professional identities. Nearly 50% were also unhappy with the learning management system (LMS) used by the course.

Respondents complained that the social media sites were intimidating to use and created confusion. Some said it took too much time to check into the LMS, Facebook, and Twitter, while others thought it would have worked better if social media worked within the LMS.

Facilitated discussions, work sharing with peers, and networking opportunities were the most-cited benefits of using social media platforms within MOOCs. However, the group that wasn’t as thrilled saw Facebook and Twitter as useless.

“It may be useful to outline in detail to students the contributions that social learning can bring to a MOOC and, indeed, to any online learning environment,” the researchers wrote. “Those who believe that conversations on social media are a waste of time may view things differently if they understand how conversations and knowledge sharing with their peers can support their learning experience.”

Survey: Americans Don't Trust College Value

Many Americans are unhappy with state of higher education and no longer convinced it’s worth the trouble. Nearly half of the respondents to a poll taken in August by Public Agenda said a college education is no longer a good investment because of the debt incurred, while 44% said they considered schools to be wasteful and inefficient.

About 60% also said institutions are mainly concerned about their bottom lines and that a college education is no longer necessary to be successful. Even more troubling is that the results were similar to a February poll conducted by the Gallup Purdue Index.

The outlook isn’t much better for students already on campus. An annual survey of more than 140,000 low-income students reported that because of costs only half actually enrolled into their school of choice. A third said they couldn’t afford their first choice and nearly 90% picked a school based on cost.

“Students are also less likely than in the past to go to college just to learn, the survey found,” education writer Jon Marcus wrote in an article for Hechinger Report. “A record 60% said they were pursuing degrees because they want to get good jobs.”

College graduates did admit to researchers that their education made an impact on their lives, but not necessarily in a good way. One poll found that about a third of grads who borrowed money for college had put off buying a house and a quarter postponed starting a business because of the debt.

Is Ransomware Targeting Education?

Education may or may not be the main target for ransomware schemes, according to difference sources. One study from the security-analyst firm BitSight Technologies found that 13% of educational institutions examined by the company had experienced a ransomware attack in the last year, compared to 5.9% of government agencies or 3.5% of health-care providers.

Ransomware disables data from a system until users pay a ransom for its release. U.S. Department of Justice statistics for 2016 indicate there are nearly 4,000 ransomware attacks every day.

“Establishing email security protocols, monitoring key third-party vendors, tracking security ratings, and avoiding file sharing are all ways to mitigate risks associated with ransomware,” Stephen Boyer, co-founder and chief technology officer of BitSight, said in an article for Campus Technology.

Another report from the security firm Datto painted a much different picture for education. The company surveyed 1,100 managed service providers and placed education ninth on its list of ransomware attacks at 12%, far behind professional services (44%) and health care (38%). The study also found that 46% of ransomware attacks came from email phishing, followed by 36% resulting from lack of employee training.

“Malicious emails, coupled with a general lack of employee cybersecurity training, are the leading cause of a successful ransomware attack,” the authors wrote in Datto’s 2016 Global Ransomware Report. “Today’s businesses must provide regular cybersecurity training to ensure all employees are able to spot and avoid a potential phishing scam in their inbox, a leading entrance point for the malware.”

Students Disillusioned with Classroom Tech

College students are used to having the latest technology at their fingertips, but aren’t getting that when they enter the classroom. New research reports that the number of students who expressed dissatisfaction with classroom technology more than doubled since 2015.

A survey of 500 students conducted by VitalSource showed that 19% were unhappy with the technology available to them in class, compared to just 8% who held that opinion one year before. Students who said they were completely satisfied with available technology fell from 35% in 2015 to 22% in 2016.

“The survey results show us the technology used in college classes just isn’t meeting the expectations of today’s students, even as other parts of their lives are relying on tech,” said Pep Carerra, chief operating officer of VitalSource. “The challenge is to keep pace with the ever-evolving landscape while keeping the aspects we know boost student success.”

Those findings are at odds with a Campus Technology survey that found 81% of faculty said technology had an “extremely positive” or “mostly positive” impact on education. The Teaching with Tech study also reported more than three-quarters of responding faculty said technology made their jobs easier and 88% said it had a positive impact on their teaching.

Fewer Americans Believe College Is Necessary

The number of Americans who think a college education is mandatory is on the decline. According to a survey from the nonpartisan organization Public Agenda, just 42% of respondents said they needed college for workforce success, a 13% drop since 2009.

Conversely, 57% said there were many ways to succeed without college, an increase of 14% over the last seven years. The study also reported that 46% of respondents said college was a questionable investment because of high loans and limited job opportunities.

Around two-thirds said many people are qualified for college but don’t have the opportunity. In addition, 59% said colleges are more concerned with the bottom line and just 34% said they believed schools cared most about education and students.

Readers Still Prefer Printed Books

Digital content continues to lag behind a good, old-fashioned printed book in readers’ preference, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center. The study found that 65% of Americans said they read a print book over the last 12 months, while just 28% read an e-book and 14% listened to an audiobook.

More than 70% of Americans reported reading a book in the last year, a number that has remained consistent since 2012. Almost 35% said they read an e-book or listened to an audiobook in the last year, but just 6% said they only read digital content.

E-book readership did increase by 11 percentage points between 2011-2014, but numbers have not changed since. The survey, conducted last March, also found that 19% of Americans under the age of 50 have used a cellphone to read a book and just 8% said they used a dedicated e-reader.

“While print remains at the center of the book-reading landscape as a whole, there has been a distinct shift in the e-book landscape over the last five years,” wrote the authors of the report. “Americans increasingly turn to multipurpose devices such as smartphones and tablet computers—rather than dedicated e-readers—when they engage with e-book content. The share of e-book readers on tablets has more than tripled since 2011 and the number of readers on phones has more than doubled over that time, when the share reading on e-book reading devices has not changed.”

Students Don't Feel Prepared for Careers

A new report found that just 40% of all college students feel they are “very prepared” to enter the workforce. At the same time, the survey, conducted in March and April by McGraw-Hill Education, added that overall satisfaction with the college experience rose from 65% in 2014 to 79% in 2016.

However, more students would like to see their schools provide: 

• More internships and professional experiences (67% in 2016, up from 59% in 2014).
• More time to focus on career preparation (59% in 2016, up from 47% in 2014).
• Better access to career-preparation tools (47% in 2016, up from 38% in 2014)
• More alumni networking opportunities (34% in 2016, up from 22% in 2014).

More than 70% of the students reported that planning for a rewarding career while in college was “extremely important,” while nearly 80% cited interpersonal skills as the most important attribute in landing a job. Students also value technology, with 85% saying that using tools in classes made them better job candidates.

Are Mobile Devices Addictive?

A new survey from Common Sense Media reports teens think they may be addicted to their mobile devices. The poll of 1,240 parents and teens from the same household found that half of the teens said they were addicted to their device, while nearly 60% of the parents agreed.

About a third of the kids said they try to reduce the amount of time they spend using a mobile device and 66% said devices were not allowed at the dinner table. However, 72% of the teens said they felt it was necessary to respond to texts, social networking messages, and other notifications immediately, while 78% said they check their devices hourly.

The parents may be addicted as well, since 48% said they responded to messages immediately and 69% check their device hourly.

“What we’ve discovered is that kids and parents feel addicted to their mobile devices, that it is causing daily conflict in homes, and that families are concerned about the consequences,” said James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense, in a report for eSchool News. “We also know that problematic media use can negatively affect children’s development and that multitasking can harm learning and performance. As a society, we all have the responsibility to take media use and addiction seriously and make sure parents have the information to help them make smart choices for their families.”

Job Are Top Priority for College Students

Most college students agree that a job after graduation is the most important outcome of a college education. The problem is, too many believe their college and university isn’t doing a very good job of preparing them for that job.

A survey of 770 adults, conducted by Stockton University, Galloway Township, NJ, found that just 35% of recent grads said colleges did “extremely well” in getting them ready for the job market. Nearly 80% viewed internships as the most important factor to success in their career and 84% said an internship was very important in developing a career and finding a job, according to a report in eCampus News.

While 73% said college was worth the cost, 31% added that more hands-on, practical experience would have made the value of their higher education even greater. The group identified problem-solving (84%) as most important skill learned in college, followed by communicating orally (83%), understanding and gathering information (79%), writing clearly (79%), and using technology (77%).

Employers listed problem-solving (32%), teamwork (21%), and writing and speaking skills (19%) as the top skills job-seekers learn in college.

Emails Can Be a Tough Read

College students know they get emails. The challenge is actually getting them to read messages, according to a study from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH.

Researchers polled 315 students about their email, social media, and text-messaging habits in the 2015 survey. They found that 85% said they check their university email daily and will open messages that interest them, particularly from faculty.

On the flip side, 72% said they avoid messages from organizations on campus, viewing those emails as spam. The survey also found that 39% of students don’t always read emails from academic advisers and 54% will skip emails from the university or academic departments.

Just over 50% of the students said they used text messaging for most of their communications, followed by social media (35%), and email (12%). Those students most active on social media were least likely to avoid emails.

“Text messaging and many social media tools seem to carry a greater expectation that viewing and responding happen as a real-time conversation,” Bernard R. McCoy, associate professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, said about the BGSU research in a report for Inside Higher Education. “You send a text message, you expect a quick reply. You receive a text message, you expect to read it and reply to it.”

Email gives users the freedom to read and respond or ignore, according to McCoy. Besides, students also know they are getting far more junk emails than junk text messages.

Online Ed Report Card Is Out

More students are taking online courses, but fewer academic leaders see virtual classes as critical to their long-term strategies, according to a new report from the Babson Survey Research Group. The study also found that fewer academic leaders rate learning outcomes of online education as equal to or superior to traditional teaching.

According to the 2015 Online Report Card—Tracking Online Education in the United States, online enrollment rose nearly 4% over 2014 figures, with private nonprofit schools showing an 11.3% increase. Private for-profit institutions went the other way, with enrollments shrinking by nearly 3%. Public colleges and universities also had the largest number of students in distance education, with more than 70% of undergraduates and almost 40% of graduate students taking online classes.

However, the number of administrators who said they believe that online learning was critical to their institutions fell from 71% in 2014 to 63% in 2015. Administrators who thought learning outcomes compared favorably with face-to-face instruction also slipped, from 77% in 2014 to 71% last year. In addition, 29% of administrators said their faculty members accept the value of online education, a lower rate than the percentage recorded in 2004.

There was more positive news when it comes to massive open online courses (MOOCs). The percentage of institutions offering MOOCs rose from 2.6% in 2012 to 8% in 2014 to 11% in 2015. However, 59% of schools said they have no plans to offer MOOCs.

Devices Distract, But Students Don't Care

New research has found that students waste about one-fifth of their class time on their digital devices. The average student uses a device for nonclass purposes 11.43 times each class, up from 10.93 times in 2013, despite the fact they understand such behavior could harm their grades.

The report Digital Distractions in the Classroom PhaseII: Student Classroom Use of Digital Devices for Non-Class Related Purposes also asked students why they look at their devices during class. Nearly 63% said they were doing it to stay connected, but about the same amount said they were checking their phones because they were bored, according to a report from Inside Higher Education.

Students overwhelmingly said they didn’t want their devices banned because they didn’t believe the gadgets were a significant distraction. They also said they should be able to use their gadgets whenever they want. Fewer than 12% admitted that they just couldn’t stop themselves.

“This speaks qualitatively to their feeling that they should be the ones to decide when and how to use their digital devices,” said Bernard R. McCoy, associate professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and author of the report. “It’s a part of what’s now factored into the classroom, and it’s a reality we all have to think about.”

McCoy surveyed 675 students at four-year institutions in 26 states. Nearly 90% of them said they understood that not paying attention was a disadvantage of using digital devices in the classroom, while 80% knew that the distraction could lead them to miss an instruction.

However, the students also assumed also they could handle their devices, with 58% saying it was just a “little” distraction. Only 39% admitted checking their device distracted others and 42% added that it was only a “little distraction” if it did bother other students.

“To me it’s fascinating, interesting, and a little scary all at once,” McCoy said. “If you take a look at the habits of society in general, technology is more available to us than ever before. Then you think about millennials. They are true digital natives. They’ve only known the Internet and the technologies associated with it.”

Students Depend on Campus Store

Despite reports to the contrary, the campus store remains an important resource for course materials, according to a student panel survey conducted by OnCampus Research. The study found that 73% of the students said it was extremely important or very important to have a physical store on campus that sells course materials.

The survey also reported that 62% of students bought course materials in their campus store in the past year, compared to 27% who said they acquired course materials through the store’s website. In addition, 78% of students living on campus acquired course materials at their college store.

The survey also found 80% of community college students said a physical store on campus that sold course materials was important. The survey found that 71% purchased school supplies from the campus store, 37% bought food and beverages, and 36% picked up apparel and school-logo wear.

Campus IT Pros See Bright Future for OER

The 2015 Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology found that 92% of responding faculty and 97% of administrators agreed that open educational resources (OER) should be used more in the classroom. Now, the informational technology pros on campus have chimed in.

The Campus Computer Survey found that 81% of responding technology officers said OER will be an important source of instructional material in the next five years. They also said that 38% of their institutions are encouraging faculty to use OER, up from 33% just a year ago.

The top priority for campus IT officials is helping faculty members integrate information technology into their lessons, according to a blog post in The Chronicle of Higher Education. However, the report also found that just 17% of campuses include instructional IT as part of the faculty review and promotion process.

“This is what IT officers think is important, but then we’ve got the continuing struggle,” said Kenneth C. Green, founding director of the survey. “Why is it that we don’t recognize the faculty members who do that as part of review and promotion?”

Providing user support and having qualified IT staff were next on the priority list, followed by network security and leveraging IT for student success.

The Disconnect Between Librarians, Faculty

Librarians appear to have a communications problem on campus. A survey, Bridging the Librarian-Faculty Gap in the Academic Library2015, reported that while 98% of librarians wish they had better communications with faculty, just 45% of the responding faculty members had the same opinion.

The survey of 500 librarians and 500 faculty members, conducted by Library Journal and the publishing company Gale, reported that 27% of faculty members think there is no need to consult with librarians about course reserves. One faculty respondent in the survey even claimed “faculty does not view the library as an up-to-date resource,” while another said Google Scholar was more essential than the library, according to a report in eCampus News.

In addition, 57% of faculty members who engaged with librarians said they worked together to provide resources, while only 31% of librarians agreed. Two-third of librarians rated libraries as being “excellent” or “above average” at creating collections of content to support curricula, while just 54% of faculty agreed.

“As more pressure is put on higher-education institutions to measure outcomes, there needs to be greater recognition of the value the library brings to the table,” said Paul Gazzolo, senior vice president and general manager for Gale. “From the survey, it’s clear that there is opportunity and need to ingrain the library in campus culture—which will ultimately elevate the learning experience, a common goal for all stakeholders.”

Faculty suggested dedicated library liaisons for each department could be part of the solution, while the librarians want more chances to attend faculty meetings, as well as commitments from the institution to embed library-taught research skills. 

Online Learning Perception Gap Remains

The gap between what administrators and faculty members think about the quality of online education has widened, according to the 2015 Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology. However, the groups do agree that textbooks are too expensive.

The survey, conducted by Gallup, of 2,175 faculty members and 105 administrators found that 63% of faculty members and 84% of administrators said they believe investment in educational technology is money well spent. At the same time, just 20% of faculty and 17% of administrators have seen significant gains in student outcomes.

Just 17% of responding faculty members said for-credit online courses have student outcomes at least equivalent to those taught in person, down from 26% in the 2014 survey. The numbers for administrators were much more positive, as 62% said online courses were of the same quality as in-person classes. That number rises to 88% if the course is being offered at the administrator’s institution.

When it comes to course materials, 93% of faculty and 98% of administrators said they believe they are too expensive. Open educational resources (OER) get high marks, with 92% of faculty and 97% of administrators agreeing that instructors should assign such content more often. However, Inside Higher Ed has also conducted research that found many faculty members have never heard of OER, and those who have don’t know where to find such materials.

“These new data from Gallup make it clear that faculty understand the problems with textbooks and other commercial course materials and are very positive of OER,” said David Wiley, chief academic officer of Lumen Learning. “Both moves significantly decrease students’ cost to graduate while increasing faculty’s pedagogical flexibility.”

Students Still Want Print Textbooks

Another survey of college students reported a significant number prefer using print textbooks over electronic versions. In fact, 72% of more than 500 current college students said they would rather use traditional textbooks in a poll conducted by Direct Textbook, a textbook price-comparison search engine.

Printed textbooks were easier to read and the fact that students normally ended up printing e-book pages anyway were among the reasons given for preferring traditional content. Students also cited the ability to highlight passages, their own lack of focus and concentration when studying with digital content, and classroom bans on tablets and laptops as reasons for wanting traditional textbooks.

The weight of e-textbooks and the fact they didn’t have to be returned were among the reasons 27% of the respondents preferred electronic textbooks. Those students also liked that e-books are more environmentally friendly, searchable, and can convert text to audio, but some of the students indicated they preferred e-books for recreational  reading and rather than for learning.

The report noted that Student Monitor research has found that 87% of the textbooks purchased or rented in 2014 were print editions, while e-textbooks made up just 9% of the market. One surprising outcome of the Direct Textbook poll was that both students who preferred print books and those who wanted e-books cited lower costs as a reason for their format preference.

“Given the ubiquity of e-book-reading devices on college campuses, it’s interesting that students prefer print textbooks over e-books, and that purchasing behavior supports that sentiment,” said Morgan MacArthur, chief technology officer of Direct Textbook. “What’s even more interesting are the differences in perception: Both students who preferred textbooks and those who preferred e-books cited lower prices as a reason.”

Doubts about MOOCs

There's been a lot written about massive open online courses (MOOCs), but what do college students think? A survey of undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found they appreciate the potential of MOOCs, but have concerns about reliability and quality.

The study, What do current college studentsthink about MOOCs, asked participants eight open-ended questions on their perceptions and attitudes toward MOOCs compared with press coverage of the courses.

“Students currently enrolled in MOOCs constitute a population of early adopters of a new technology,” the authors of the report wrote. “For MOOCs to be widely accepted as effective means of education, MOOCs must achieve a critical mass of users to either align with, or overcome, prevalent existing students’ attitudes toward higher education.”

The survey found that 81% of the responding students said they had concerns over the reliability of MOOCs and 52% worried about the content used. While 58% held positive views of MOOC accessibility, 49% had concerns about a lack of guidance from instructors and 40% were troubled by a lack of communication options with the instructors teaching the MOOC.

Researchers concluded that many students feel the information presented through MOOCs is not of the same quality as that in a traditional college course. The students also felt feedback from instructors was too slow. Another significant issue was the fact that MOOCs don’t always offer college credit.