The OECD research called: “New Millenium Learners in Higher Education: Evidence and Policy Implications” [pdf] (Higher Education to 2030) highlights four main conclusion regarding the level of ICT proficiency based on higher education students.

4 Conclusions:

• Students in higher education are heavy users of digital media, so in that respect they can be conceptualised as a generation of new millennium learners. However, there is a variety of student profiles when it comes to the intensity of attachment to technology or the variety of uses. All of them are already in higher education institutions and it would be discriminatory to develop policies considering just one of the different profiles.

• Students want technology to improve teaching and learning, not to change it radically. They value technology adoption in teaching and learning provided that it improves convenience and productivity in academic and course work. Teachers’ perception of students’ expectations regarding learning tend to overestimate the degree of affection to course adoption of technology. In this respect that the image of the new millennium learners goes far beyond what the reality of today’s students’ expectations is. There are no indications that this will change in the short run.

• Teachers in higher education are far from being digital immigrants. The adoption of technology has contributed to transform academic work and, slowly than in other areas such as research, is clearly taking place in course instruction. It may well be that the actual use of technology in teaching in higher education clearly outperforms the equivalent in the schools sector in most OECD countries. And the gap in technology adoption between students and teachers in higher education is much more reduced than the equivalent in schools.

• Teachers often take incorrectly for granted that the familiarity of students with technology makes them automatically savvy in information and communication skills. This is evident as plagiarism is the most exacerbated indication of the lack of adequate education in this domain. Although higher education institutions can do a lot to educate for the 21st century skills in the respect of the academic values, previous education counts probably more.

Related resources:
+ Google Generation.

+ Centre for Educational Research and Innovation.