Students’ perspective of digital technologies in higher education

This research is based on data collected through the online survey for students of the ECOLHE project's first intellectual output - Comparative Research Report on Digital Technologies in higher education: from the European Vision to the University17. ECOLHE - Empower competences for online learning in higher education - examined the “translation into practice” of the idea of e-learning in European higher education (Latour, 2005; Freeman; 2009) at a national level by academic bodies. Universities involved were E-Campus University (IT), Roma Tre University (IT), University Oberta de Catalunya (ES), University College of Cork (IR), University of Patras (GR) and Laurea University (FI). The project aimed to highlight the experiences, practices and competencies of teachers, researchers and university staff members active in the digital field in order to promote the dissemination of good practices in training and skills development for “online” learning in Higher Education (HE). For this reason, the main scope of the questionnaire built for the present research was to investigate students’ perception of the ability to integrate digital technologies into organisational and training processes supporting teaching/learning activities. The research started from the idea that it was possible to analyse the dimensions of students’ digital maturity18 by studying their perceptions of the university’s capability to carry out good processes and services for the digital learning experience. The paper is organized into three sections. Initially, we have illustrated the four research questions that guided the entire study. In the following sections, the methodology adopted and the main techniques used to answer these questions will be explained. Then, we present the sample and the method of data collection. Work will be organised by dividing the presentation and the comment on the results according to the response given to the four research questions. Finally, the last section is devoted to concluding reflections about the main results obtained.