The enthusiasm about the application of the new technologies to the university setting has clearly outpaced the empirical evidence that would support claims regarding their potential to enhance academic engagement and learning outcomes. This is clearly a curious development. We are continually hearing from otherwise sensible, highly educated people that professors merely have to listen to the ‘wisdom’ of young ‘digital natives’ to learn how to revolutionize the university system. In other words, we are being told that in the span of one generation, the wisdom of numerous centuries of higher education is to be overturned.
For example, in a recent exchange on another blog posting, Paul Axelrod, a Canadian historian of education and past Dean of Education at York University, wrote the following in response to my posting on academic engagement:
Unlike many of their professors (though perhaps not unlike their younger teaching assistants), they are steeped in the world of new technology – [today's students] consume information differently, they multi-task on line, and they may well have different ways of processing and creating knowledge, a subject that also requires more study. I spoke to a retired public school administrator recently who said that educators will not successfully repress students’ use of cell phones in schools, any more than professors can effectively control students’ use of laptops etc in university classrooms. Instead, teachers and faculty should be learning how to use these devices as educational tools – seeking to achieve their educational goals in new ways.
In his commentary, Axelrod also evokes the ‘old fogey’ argument to attempt to discredit those who raise concerns about maintaining academic standards. He adds the incongruous argument that he has seen ‘some remarkably creative work by undergraduate and graduate students, including brilliantly written papers’ so he refuses ‘to believe that all is lost.’
I find this form of defensiveness curious because it is not necessary: those who comment on the current situation in Canadian universities are usually identifying new problems (e.g., I am concerned with the ‘entitled disengagement’ that is unique to the current era) and no one is denying that there are not still excellent students in our universities; in addition, few critics would argue that ‘all is lost.’ But, more curious is when scholars like Axelrod add the contention that adopting new technologies will save the day.
There are several possible explanations for this form of reasoning. Generally, those who adopt these types of non sequitors may be reducing the cognitive dissonance they experience because of their role and (cushy position) in a dysfunctional system. But, in reference to the issue of technologies, at least two other explanations are possible, depending on the stakeholder. First, well-meaning professors and administrators like Axelrod may be caught up in a larger social trend that has been identified as the academic equivalent of a ‘moral panic.’ Second, tech-advocates find the argument compatible with their role as ‘moral entrepreneurs.’
Three Australian researchers (Sue Bennett, Karl Maton and Lisa Kervin, ‘The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence,’British Journal of Educational Technology 39(5) (2008): 775–786),propose the moral panic explanation based on their critical review of the evidence concerning ‘the digital natives debate.’ These researchers were unable to find convincing evidence about either the existence of a generation of ‘digital natives’ or that current students have a preference for technologies as part of their education (at best, they found, only about 20-25% of university students could be considered tech-savvy in terms of their usage of technologies). Nor were they able to find evidence for distinctive ‘learning styles’ among current students. Indeed, certain claims like a preference for multitasking are not only unsupported, but research on multitasking suggests that it can be counterproductive to learning. On the basis of these and other findings, these researchers conclude:
Our analysis of the digital native literature demonstrates a clear mismatch between the confidence with which claims are made and the evidence for such claims. So, why have these claims gained such currency? Put another way, why have these arguments repeatedly been reproduced as if they were supported by empirical evidence? An examination of the nature of the ‘debate’ itself offers some clues. (p. 782)
Borrowing from sociologist Stanley Cohen’s concept of the moral panic, these researchers note that the public discourse around certain issues ‘can achieve a prominence that exceeds the evidence in support of the phenomenon.’ Normally, the concept has been applied to various forms of perceived norm violation, as found in youth subcultures or forms of crime, that evoke a media-driven public reaction of urgency even though there have been no increases in the prevalence of the purported deviance. They note that those promoting the concept of the digital native along with the need for urgent change in the education system use ‘dramatic language, proclaim a profound difference in the world, and pronounced generational differences.’ In addition, they evoke ‘strongly bound divides: between the new generation and all previous generations; between the technically adept than those who are not; and between learners and teachers.’ In this case, the equivalents of the ‘deviants’ are teachers who are vilified for putting the education of the young, and the future of society, in jeopardy.
The net result is that debate is essentially shut down and unsupported claims proliferate in the media. Because the very people who are called upon to change are vilified, the likelihood of useful change taking place is diminished. Yet, as these Australian researchers note, educators ‘have every right to demand evidence and to expect that calls for change be based on well founded and supported arguments,’ but ‘many of the arguments made to date about digital natives currently lack that support.’ What the evidence does show, they note, is that there is a complex relationship between young people and technology that is evolving, and there are no grounds to consider the current generation of young people as ‘alien’ to older generations. And, while the current education system may need to change in some ways, as a group, young people are not rejecting it.
As for tech-advocates, I would argue that their behaviour corresponds to Howard Becker’s concept of the ‘moral entrepreneur,’ namely, someone who is seeking to create new norms. Moral entrepreneurs can have motives that are either altruistic or selfish. Altruistic moral entrepreneurs would include those promoting prosocial causes (e.g., Mothers Against Drunk Driving), while selfish ones include those who stand to gain personally in terms of their careers.
The sociological theory of moral entrepreneurship identifies two groups of people involved in the process of norm creation: those who create them and those who enforce them. Those who attempt to create new norms are referred to as moral crusaders. If they are to be successful, they must clearly define a problem and a solution. However, at a certain point in their crusade they become dependent upon experts who will validate their cause on the basis of scientific evidence. This is the juncture where we currently find ourselves, and it appears that the moral crusade undertaken by tech advocates will falter on this basis: the evidence is not forthcoming as to the problem or the solution. At the same time, these crusaders have made a strategic error in vilifying teachers because it would be teachers who would enforce the new norms of an educational system predicated on the use of technologies.
In sum, new technologies will not save the day for our universities by suddenly fixing the disengagement problem. That problem has multiple sources that need to be carefully identified, empirically verified, and understood in a way that helps us steer policy if a practicable direction. But, first, we need to get those in charge to listen, and not get caught up in trendy quick fixes that are doomed to fail.