By Tom Lowe
At the end of my last blog, I outlined how the way we engage with wider society is rapidly changing. As part of the continued push towards the digitisation of services and knowledge transfer across the world, the way we engage with one another, both in collective or individual (one to one) settings, has increasingly moved online and into virtual spaces. In such spaces we are also seeking to prioritise three factors - convenience, speed and (low) cost. When discussing student engagement, it is often easy to refer to students as a homogeneous group who think, feel, and behave as a collective. This is often framed as being different to that of staff, but I invite you to reflect on the patterns and prioritised needs outlined above to consider the extent to which student and staff needs are so different in an increasingly face-paced and digital world. When we begin to recognise the needs in our own engagement patterns as being reflective of those of students, we do start to unpick this false dichotomy woven into the fabric of higher education, which often positions students as demanding engagement opportunities that are unreasonably different to our own. The trends of modern day living outside of higher education will inevitably wash up into our institutions and we find ourselves at an exciting moment of developments to engage the student body in more meaningful and accessible ways.
I now invite you to think further about your own digital needs and priorities. Many of us will admit to shopping online more than we are visiting high streets and towns, we more commonly bank online through mobile apps rather than visiting the in-store branch, and even our health services are becoming increasingly accessible through our mobile devices. Socially, we are meeting up less, with the ability to communicate and catch up with family and friends is becoming easier and easier, through video calling applications , voice note/ audio messages instead of telephone call, and sending quick text messages, or even just emojis(!), rather than lengthy letters (though, admittedly, the decline in letters started far sooner than our digital advances can take credit for). Further, in regard to sourcing information or media, we are choosing to stream from home rather than visit the silver screen, and if we have any question about anything across the entire world of knowledge (from recipe searching to historical ponders, or even, ‘can my dog eat [insert foodstuff]’) – we know the answer is only seconds away, at our finger tips, at the end of a quick internet search. Keeping the above all in mind and mixed with a cost of living crisis and long term economic and social impacts of a global pandemic, are you surprised that students are engaging differently with the (perhaps not-so-) modern university? Mirroring much of the same as what staff are with the university as a workplace…
Generation Z students
The current generation of students in our institutions are largely from Generation Z (those born 1996-2010). These students are often referred to as ‘Digital Natives’ born into a technology rich society of social media, apps, smart phones, and the internet. Although it is not advisable to generalise over groups, there are lots of mediums of engagement that have dominated the last 15 years in particular, where perhaps the current 18-year-old entering higher education this September 2024 (born c.2006 by the way!) were exposed to websites like YouTube, social media and even streaming services in their early childhood or infancy. A recent medium for knowledge transfer online is the growth of Micro-Content, now dominant as a preference in engagement, where short videos and reels are well received – sometimes taking precedent over reading. The ‘Google it’ society has been here for a long time, but increasingly the ‘YouTube it’ or ‘Tik Tok it’ is perhaps more dominant in our students, where the knowledge comes through watching short, edited videos rather than skim and scan reading text. When I was a student (2010-13), to gain knowledge I had to visit the library or lectures – now, perhaps worryingly for some academics who rightly prioritise peer-reviewed sources, many people view the knowledge of simply being at the end of a video search bar.
Earlier I referenced that these engagement patterns have not developed in isolation, as contributing to much of these increasing digital requirements is the cost of living crisis and the long term impact of the global pandemic. All of these requirements, priorities and preferences is perhaps leading to lower student footfall on campuses and engagement through attendance. In my next blog, I will unpack the student attendance conundrum further, but for now, to close, let’s consider a little further the impact of the pandemic. The global pandemic impacted most nations’ education systems substantially across the world, with many imposing lockdown restrictions, which led to long periods of closure for in-person education at schools and universities. The Generation Z students coming to university now were hugely impacted by this experience, and an entire generation of learners were exposed to distance online learning for multiple years. The proposition that you could engage in learning and qualifications (such as GCSEs in the UK) without attending in-person classes was realised and a new way of understanding education, at a much larger scale than was previously experienced, was exposed. This moment in educational history has been pivotal. Students now know they can learn, and pass, without attending in-person classes, and watching catch up videos (often watched in double speed) can be the norm. This digital approach to education maps onto the three underpinning features of modern priorities that I outlined at the start of this blog - convenience, speed, and (low) cost. My next blog, out in two weeks, will discuss why your students may be in the room less and tackle the current attendance conundrum of higher education.
About the author:
Tom Lowe has researched and innovated in student engagement across diverse settings for over ten years, in areas such as student voice, retention, employability and student-staff partnership. Tom works at the University of Westminster as Assistant Head of School (Student Experience) in Finance and Accounting where he leads on student experience, outcomes and belonging. Tom is also the Chair of RAISE, a network for all stakeholders in higher education for researching, innovating and sharing best practice in student engagement. Prior to Westminster, Tom was a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Portsmouth, and previously held leadership positions for engagement and employability at the University of Winchester. Tom has published two books on student engagement with Routledge; ‘A Handbook for Student Engagement in Higher Education: Theory into Practice’ in 2020 and ‘Advancing Student Engagement in Higher Education: Reflection, Critique and Challenge’ in 2023, and has supported over 40 institutions in consultancy and advisory roles internationally.
Recommended further readings on engaging Generation Z:
Dollinger, M., 2023. Critical challenges to support Generation Z learners. In: Lowe, T. (ed) Advancing Student Engagement in Higher Education: Reflection, Critique and Challenge. Abingdon: Routledge.
Mohr, Kathleen A. J. and Mohr, Eric S., 2017. Understanding Generation Z Students to Promote a Contemporary Learning Environment, Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence: 1(1), Article 9.
Mumpuni, R.A., Amaliyah, A., Noor, F., Laksmiwati, I. and Lukkitawati, L., 2021. Understanding the intention of generation Z on Netflix and Viu streaming services. ProTVF, 5(2), pp.145-162.
Nicholas, A.J., 2020. Preferred learning methods of generation Z. Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers. 74.
Quesada, J.A.C., 2023. Audio-visual consumption of Millennials and Generation Z: preference for snackable content. doxa. comunicación, 1(36).