A survey report, “Instructors and Students: Technology Use, Engagement and Learning Outcomes,” was recently released by Cengage Learning. The survey was conducted by research and consulting firm Eduventures and was administered to 751 students and 201 instructors across the United States in December 2010. This is the second Cengage Learning/Eduventures survey designed to uncover how educational technology impacts overall student engagement and learning outcomes.
According to survey results, students and instructors do agree that educational technology can enhance engagement, which can lead to improved learning outcomes.
- A majority (58 percent) of instructors believe that technology in courses positively impacts student engagement.
- Seventy-one percent of instructors that rated student engagement levels as “high” report seeing a great benefit to learning outcomes as a result of using technology in courses.
- Seventy-one percent of students who are employed full-time and seventy-seven percent of students who are employed part-time prefer more technology-based tools in the classroom.
In addition, students and instructors have seen technology improve engagement in the past 12 months.
- 79 percent of instructors and 86 percent of students have seen the average level of engagement improve over the last year as they have increased their use of digital educational tools.
- Additionally, 67 percent of students reported they preferred courses that use a great deal of technology, a nine percent increase from the previous year.
- Similarly, 58 percent of instructors said they prefer teaching courses that use a great deal of technology, a 10 percent increase from 2009.
For more information on the results, read the press release or the complete survey results here.
This article is very impressive by Cengage, and I am a huge fan of all of their products. Cengage seems to always be on the cutting edge of technology with their textbooks and resources. I am not shocked by the article’s findings that technology positively impacts student engagement; however the numbers indicating how much is remarkable. The article also goes on to indicate that through the increase in student engagement this also positively affects student learning outcomes. Student learning outcomes is an area that is always important to measure and the more positive the better.
In the article it rated the following areas: online libraries and databases, e-textbooks, and online learning portals. Online libraries and databases had the greatest impact on student engagement ranking the highest—this surprised me somewhat, because I was not expecting it to have the largest number. E-textbooks also surprised me, because I do not think about them engaging the students. However, when reflecting on some of the e-textbooks I have seen published by Cengage; they can be very interactive for students, and I believe they are more motivated to look for information versus thumbing through a printed textbook.
As a technology educator and one that often trains other teachers in technology professional development; I was surprised by how 58% of instructors say they prefer teaching a course that uses a great deal of technology. For so long I have heard many teachers afraid of technology and not sure how to implement it. The only rationale I would be able to think of concerning this staggering statistic would be how the resources we are given to teach with continue to be more technology centered. Textbooks now have all of the resources online for teachers with online flash cards, Power Points, and much more. To take full advantage of all of the resources the publishers make available and instructor would have to use a great deal of technology.