CNIE Program: Concurrent Sessions

The Digital Learner at BCIT: The Myth and the Reality

Abstract

The prevailing view of today's post secondary learners is that they are fundamentally different than previous generations in how they learn, what they value in education, how they use technology and how they interact. The notion of the millennial learner has become accepted as fact even though it there is limited empirical support for this. In light of this we sought to gain a more accurate understanding of the digital learner at a Canadian polytechnic (BCIT). In the spring of 2007, we conducted 84 semi-structured interviews with students and instructors from a sample that represented a cross-section of BCIT programs. Interview questions centred on formal and informal uses of technologies, in particular technologies used for student-student and instructor-student communication. We present our findings based on the thematic analysis of the interview data, and assess the relevance of the typologies of millennial learners in relation to our own institution.