Student Survey, Fall 2003

The Study

The Faculty Advisory Committee on Academic Computing (FACAC) and Information Technology Services administered a survey to a sample of full-time Penn State undergraduates in November, 2003. The aim of this survey was to understand more about students’ usage of technology, their experience with technology, and their attitudes and expectations about technology resources.

The Results

Of the 5000 students who received the web link, 1838 (36.8%) responded. The fact that this represents fewer than half of the students surveyed should be considered when interpreting the responses.

The respondents were fairly evenly distributed among the different class standings. Most (29%) were freshmen, while 24% were sophomores, 22% were juniors, and 25% were seniors. Most respondents were female (55%), lived off campus (64%), and attend the University Park campus (53%). The largest colleges (Business, Engineering, and Liberal Arts) were most heavily represented in the respondents.

Computer Ownership

Of the respondents, 73.7% own a desktop and 32.2% own a laptop. There is an overlap of 9.2% of the students who own both, and 3.4% said that they do not own either. There was no significant difference between the Campus Colleges (CC) and University Park (UP) students for laptop ownership. Freshmen are more likely to own a laptop than any other class, but there is no significant difference between general computer ownership and class standing. There was no significant difference between the locations and whether a student owned a computer.

Respondents preferred Windows (94.9%) operating system over MAC or UNIX. Relative to male students, females were more likely to prefers Windows systems and less likely to prefer MAC and UNIX\Linux systems.

A majority of students (90.3%) bought their computer before arriving to Penn State. Few students (9.4%) plan to buy a computer before they graduate. A handful of students (1.7%) bought their computer through the Penn State computer store, and 1.9% plan to buy their next computer through them.

Laptop Usage

Of the 877 students who own a laptop, 12.2% of students carry their laptop around campus, and 2.5% use it to take class notes. Most do not carry their laptops around either because it is too heavy to lug around (34.5%) or because they are afraid it may get stolen (29.2%). Among those with laptops, 9.0% use their laptops in wireless mode where available on campus.

Laptop owners most wanted more wireless hubs on campus (50.4%), help installing and using their laptop in wireless mode on campus (32.2%), more outlets in classrooms to plug in the computer (31.1%), and information on how to protect their computer from being stolen (25.0%).

Wireless Access

When asked how knowledgeable concerning wireless access points on campus, half the students have no idea where any of the wireless access points are located. Other students replied that they were not too knowledgeable (27.3%), somewhat knowledgeable (17.8%), and very knowledgeable (4.8%) of wireless access points.

Internet Usage

With regards to internet access, 34.6% said they used Broadband off campus, 32.6% used their resident hall connection, 21.6% of students said that used an off campus dial-up modem, 10.2% do not use Penn State’s network, 6.6% used a wireless connection, and 1.7% said they used an ISDN modem. Some respondents (2.7%) said they have no internet connection.

Communication

Students most likely use a cell phone to communicate with friends and family at a distance (75.6% of respondents). Other popular communication tools are Instant Messenger (72.5%), Email (71.9%), traditional telephone (44.8%), letters in the mail (16.7%), and NetPhone (0.8%). Less than one percent of students replied with some other type of communication tool (0.9%).

PDA Usage

Only 21% of the respondents own a Personal Digital Assistant. Of these, 46% used it for calendar information, 41% used it for address/contact information, 12% used it in the classroom to take notes, 5% used it to access the internet, and 4% used it for email. Male students and those with higher class standings were more likely to own a PDA.

Cell Phone Usage

Of all respondents, 88% of the students own a cell phone. Of these students, 71% primarily for long-distance (free minutes) calls, 63% replaced all use of wired phones, 23% for emergencies only or simply infrequent usage, 17% for calendar and directory information, 8% accessed the internet with their cell phone, 6.2% take and send pictures, and 5% accessed their email. Females and CC students were more likely to own a cell phone.

When asked about their cell phone provider, the most popular companies were Verizon Wireless (40%), AT&T Wireless (34%), Sprint PCS (7%), Cingular Wireless (6%), T-Mobile (6%), and Nextel (3%). Five percent of students responded that they had another provider, the most popular named service being Cellular One (3%).

Students’ per month cell phones usage varies from less than one hundred minutes per month (10%), to between 101 and 500 minutes (45%), to between 501 and 1000 (27%), and over 1000 minutes (13.4%). Four percent of students were unsure about their average usage.

Windows Updates and Anti-virus Protection

Students were asked about how they handled the issue of applying patches to the Windows operating system. Of the 97% of students that use Windows, 45% have set their PC to accept all the updates automatically, 25% check for updates when they hear about problems, 17% check for updates several times each week, 14% do not check for updates, another 14% do not know how to check for updates or apply them, 12% would like access to information on applying patches and updates, and 6% would attend a free training session on applying patches and updates.

Of all respondents, 8% do not have anti-virus software on their PCs. Of those who do, 54% have their computers set to accept all anti-virus updates, 19% manually update their anti-virus software at least once a week, 18% of students had a virus at least once in the past three months, and 11% do not know how to update their anti-virus software. A third of students use the free anti-virus software provided by the university. Students would like to learn more about protecting their computers from viruses (18%) and would attend a free training session on updating anti-virus software (8%).

Online Courses

Only 7% of the students have taken an online course at Penn State. More than half (55%) of these thought gaining access to course materials was very easy, 34% thought it was somewhat easy, 8% thought it was somewhat difficult, and 4% found it difficult. Of the seven percent, 74% students would take another online course.

Computer Confidence

Of the respondents, 18% of students thought they were very skilled with computers, 36% thought they were skilled, 40% believed that they were average, 6% though that they had little skill, and a small fraction said they had no skill. The higher the class standing, the more skilled students perceived themselves to be. UP and CC students were equally likely to rate themselves as very skilled, and males were more likely to consider themselves very skilled.

Plagiarism

A vast majority of students realize that most internet material is copyrighted (92%) and know how to properly cite internet reference sources (79%). About half of the students (49%) were aware of copyright and plagiarism information available through the Penn State website, and a few students (9%) would like to learn more about the legal aspects of these copyrighted materials.

When asked about the occurrence of plagiarism in classes, students believed that it definitely occurs (31%), seldom occurs (27%), and know at least one person that has plagiarized (17%). Many students believe that Penn State students do not know how to properly cite sources and thus might be accidental plagiarists (64%).

E-Portfolio

Concerning e-Portfolio, two-thirds (67%) of students were not aware of the e-Portfolio initiative. Of those who were aware, 46% were aware of the e-Portfolio initiative but do not use it, 24% do not have the time to learn how to create an e-Portfolio, 20% like the e-Portfolio and its capabilities, 34% would like to attend a tutorial on how to use e-Portfolio features, and 45% would like to graduate with an online portfolio that showcases their accomplishments as a Penn State student.

Personal Webspace

Forty percent of respondents said that they do not have Penn State provided personal web space, while 38% reported that they did and 22% appear unsure. Of the students reporting that they have personal webspace, 48% have posted assignments or other evidence of academic achievement. Conversely, 23% of all respondents said that they do not know how to post assignments. A small portion of students (13%) would not approve of an instructor requiring them to post assignments on their Penn State provided personal webspace.

Use of Some Services Provided by ITS

Students were asked about the frequency with which they used some IT services. Some of the services (e.g., wireless in the HUB) are available only at University Park, but all of the others are available at all locations. Webmail and ANGEL are the most heavily used applications.

Computers and Learning

Of courses with websites, 39% of students said that their instructors maintenance of a course web-site was extremely important, 32% said it was very important, 19% said it was moderately important, 6% said it was slightly important, and 5% said it was not at all important. Most students (78%) said they would still attend a class that has a course website as often as those that do not.

The majority of students (55%) said they would prefer taking a course that makes use of technology for out-of-class learning, with a reduced number of classroom meetings, as opposed to taking a course online and never going to classroom meetings (7%) or taking a course in the traditional sense where all of the instruction takes place in class (38%).

ANGEL

With regards to ANGEL, only 11% of respondents said that none of their instructors used ANGEL. They reported that ANGEL is used for posting and updating the class syllabus (80%), posting lecture notes (70%), emailing to communicate with students (68%), providing links to web sites (62%), using a Drop Box for assignments (50%), using the class calendar (39%), using the class message board (38%), creating and using class teams (31%), using library resources (20%), and using a chat room or conferencing (15%).

Web-Based Tutorials

In regard to free on-line web-based tutorials available through Information Technology Services at Penn State, most respondents did not know they existed (58%), and some (25%) knew they existed and never used them. Of those that did know about the tutorials, students used them to fulfill a course requirement (12%), 10% to learn skills for personal development, 7% to study for course exams, and less than one percent for other reasons. Some students have used the tutorials via ANGEL (6%), and some would like to purchase them if they were available for a small cost on a CD (6%).

Course Technology Usage

Students were asked about the frequency with which they were required to use particular kind of technologies or resources in their classes during the past year. The least used technologies were creating an electronic portfolio and creating a digital animation or movie. Respondents used these technologies in less than 1 course per year. Word processing is by far the most common application, but many courses require students to retrieve information electronically. To students, this probably means finding web-based resources. The use of LIAS seems far less common, though LIAS also offers electronic resources. Powerpoint is very widely used, and teams were a common feature of many courses.

Awareness of Services at University Park

Students at University Park were asked about their awareness and use of some services provided by ITS. Of the students who know that computing training seminars and workshops exist (74%), most said they found out because of posters in the computer labs and residence halls (15%), email (11%), instructors (10%), the Daily Collegian newspaper (9%), word of mouth (8%), fliers (8%), other students (6%), listserves (5%), webpages (4%), and newsgroups (less than 1%). Some students (8%) have difficulty finding information about computer training seminars and workshops.