Barbour, M. K. (2016, October). Digital natives, net generation, generation me… What do we really know about today’s students and how they learn? A presentation at the annual meeting of the Provincial and Territorial Distance Education Association, Edmonton, AB.

1. Digital Natives, Net Generation, Generation
Me… What Do We Really Know About
Today’s Students and How They Learn?
Michael K. Barbour
Touro University, California

5. Generational Differences
The theory that people born
within an approximately 20
year time period share a
common set of characteristics
based upon the historical
experiences, economic and
social conditions,
technological advances and
other societal changes they
have in common

6. Today’s Student
• Generation Y
• Echo
• Net Generation
• Neomillennials
• Generation NeXt
• Millennials
• Generation Me
• Digital Natives
• Generation txt
• Generation Z
• iGeneration
• Gen Tech
• Gen Wii
• Plurals

7. Today’s Student: Which Fit Your Students?
Gamers Digital Natives Socially
Conscious
Disdain Previous
Generations
High Expectations Spoiled Rotten Respect
Intelligence
Value Diversity
Expect Incomes
Exceeding Parents
Experiential
Learners
Optimistic and
Positive
Family Oriented
Collaborative Nomadic Inclusive Have More Friends
Healthy Lifestyle Clueless Direct More Liberal
Achievement
Oriented
Media
Consumer
Patriotic More Conservative
Value Balanced
Lives
Multi-tasker Confident Entitled

8. Generational Boundaries
• GI Generation “Greatest Generation”
– Born between 1901 and 1924
• Silent Generation
– Born between 1925 and 1945
• Baby Boomers
– Born between 1946 and 1964
• Generation X
– Born between 1965 and 1980
• Millennials/Gen Y/Digital Natives/
Net Generation/Generation Me
– Born between 1981 and 1995/2005
• Generation Z/iGeneration/Gen Tech/
Gen Wii/Net Gen/Digital Natives/Plurals/Becomers
– Born since 1995/2005

9. Generational Boundaries
• Generation X
– Born between 1965 and 1980/1985
• Millennials/Gen Y/Digital Natives/Net Generation/
Generation Me
– Born between 1981/1986 and 1995/2005
• Generation Z/iGeneration/
Gen Tech/Gen Wii/Net Gen/
Digital Natives/Plurals/
Becomers
– Born between 1995/2005
and 2010/present
• Generation alpha
– Born since 2011/2015

10. Generational Differences
The theory that people born
within an approximately 20
year time period share a
common set of characteristics
based upon the historical
experiences, economic and
social conditions,
technological advances and
other societal changes they
have in common

13. GI Generation “Greatest Generation”
Silent Generation
-
Baby Boomers
-
Generation X
-> 2 separate generations

14. Generation Me Numbers
• 60 million – were largest
group since the Baby
Boomers (72 million)
• 3 times larger than
Generation X
• Teen population is growing
at twice the rate of the rest
of America
• Made up 24.5% of U.S.
population in 2015

15. Generation Z Numbers
• Made up 26% of U.S.
population in 2015
• Numerically speaking,
larger in numbers than
Baby Boomers (72 million)
and Millennials (60 million)
• Almost half are non-White

16. Generation Z Numbers
• Self-identify as: loyal,
compassionate, thoughtful,
open-minded, responsible,
and determined
• More risk-averse
• Double level of church
attendance than
Millennials, Generation X,
and Baby Boomers
• Most connected (across all
demographics)

17. Today's
youth “are
recasting the
image of
youth from
downbeat
and alienated
to upbeat
and
engaged.”

19. • Children of baby
boomers
• Digital technology has
had a profound impact on
their personalities,
including their attitudes
and approach to learning
• Generation gap has
become a generation lap
Net Generation

20. Millennials
• Based upon survey
research
• Sample from Fairfax,
VA
Howe, N., & Strauss, W.
(2000). Millennials rising:
The next great generation
New York: Vintage
Books.

21. Digital Natives
• Common in the media and
in education circles
• No systematic research
• Makes unfounded
assumptions about access
to digital technology
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives,
Digital Immigrants – Part II: Do
They Really Think Differently? On
the Horizon, 9(6).

22. Generational Differences and Training
• Thomas Reeves (University of
Georgia) completed a funded
literature review on generational
differences
• Most generational differences in the
literature were based on no or
flawed research
Reeves, T. C. (2008). Do genera)onal differences ma1er in instruc)onal design? Paper
presented to ITForum. Retrieved from h>p://iAorum.coe.uga.edu/Paper104/
ReevesITForumJan08.pdf

24. “Today's young people
have been raised to aim
for the stars at a time
when it is more difficult
than ever to get into
college, find a good job,
and afford a house. Their
expectations are very high
just as the world is
becoming more
competitive, so there's a
huge clash between their
expectations and reality.”

26. • In 2002, 74% of high school students
admitted to cheating whereas in 1969
only 34% admitted such a failing. (p. 27)
• In 1967, 86% of incoming college
students said that “developing a
meaningful philosophy of life” was an
essential life goal whereas in 2004 only
42% of GenMe freshmen agreed. (p. 48)
• In 2004, 48% of American college
freshmen reported earning an A average
in high school whereas in 1968 only 18%
of freshmen reported being an A student
in high school. (p. 63)
• In the 1950s, only 12% of young teens
agreed with the statement “I am an
important person” whereas by the late
1980s, 80% claimed they were
important. (p. 69)

27. Oblinger, D. (2003). Understanding the new student.
EDUCAUSE Review, 38(3), 36-42.
“When asked
about problems
facing their
generation, many
millennials
respond that the
biggest one is
the poor example
that adults set
for kids.” p. 36

28. “The number one
thing to realize with
the Millennials is
that as a whole they
reflect much more
parental
perfectionism than
any generation in
living memory.
Colleges and
universities should
know that they are
not just getting a
kid, but they are
also getting a
parent.”

29. What Else Do We Know About
Today’s Students?

32. The Master Multitasker???
Memory encoding
and memory
retrieval weaker
in teens when
attention is
divided
Naveh-Benjamin, M., Kilb, A., & Fisher, T. (2006). Concurrent task effects on memory encoding
and retrieval: Further support for an asymmetry. Memory & Cogni)on, 34(1), 90-101.

33. Other Multitasking Studies
• Herath, P., Klingberg, T., Yong, J., Amunts, K., & Roland, P. (2001). Neural
correlates of dual task interference can be dissociated from those of
divided attention: an fMRI study. Cereb. Cortex 11, 796 – 805.
– longer time
• Fisch, S. (2000). A capacity model of children’s comprehension of
educational content on television. Media Psychology, 2(1), 63-91.
• Lang, A. (2000). The limited capacity model of mediate message
processing. Journal of Communication, 50(1), 46-70.
– simultaneous tasks limit memory
• Just, M. A., Kellera, T. A., & Cynkara, J. (2008). A decrease in brain
activation associated with driving when listening to someone speak . Brain
Research, 1205, 70-80.
– less likely to remember

34. Digital Savviness?

35. Digital Savviness?
• Today’s students’
technical knowledge is
broad, but shallow
• Technical fluency
does not equal
maturity
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0506/rs/ers0506w.pdf

36. What Do We Know About
Online Learners?

37. Davis (2007)
Supplemental

38. Borup (2015)
Full-Time

39. Supplemental Online Learners

40. Supplemental Online Learners
Bigbie &
McCarroll (2000)
over half of students who completed FLVS courses
scored an A in their course & only 7% received a failing
grade
Barker & Wendel
(2001)
students in the six virtual schools in three different
provinces performed no worse than the students from the
three conventional schools
Cavanaugh et al.
(2005)
FLVS students performed better on a non-mandatory
assessment tool than students from the traditional
classroom
McLeod et al.
(2005)
FLVS students performed better on an algebraic
assessment than their classroom counterparts
Barbour &
Mulcahy (2008,
2009)
little difference in the overall performance of students
based upon delivery model
Chingos &
Schwerdt (2014)
FLVS students perform about the same or somewhat
better on state tests once their pre-high-school
characteristics are taken into account

41. Ballas & Belyk
(2000)
participation rate in the assessment among
virtual students ranged from 65% to 75%
compared to 90% to 96% for the classroom-
based students
Bigbie &
McCarroll (2000)
between 25% and 50% of students had dropped
out of their FLVS courses over the previous two-
year period
Cavanaugh et al.
(2005)
speculated that the virtual school students who
did take the assessment may have been more
academically motivated and naturally higher
achieving students
McLeod et al.
(2005)
results of the student performance were due to
the high dropout rate in virtual school courses
Supplemental Online Learners

42. Haughey &
Muirhead (1999)
preferred characteristics include the highly motivated,
self-directed, self-disciplined, independent learner who
could read and write well, and who also had a strong
interest in or ability with technology
Roblyer & Elbaum
(2000)
only students with a high need to control and structure
their own learning may choose distance formats freely
Clark et al. (2002) IVHS students were highly motivated, high achieving,
self-directed and/or who liked to work independently
Mills (2003) typical online student was an A or B student
Watkins (2005) 45% of the students who participated in e-learning
opportunities in Michigan were either advanced
placement or academically advanced students
Supplemental Online Learners

43. • Online student scores in math, reading, and wriXng
have been lower than scores for students statewide
over the last three years (Colorado - 2006)
• Full-Xme K-12 online students scored lower on state
assessments than tradiXonal students, parXcularly in
mathemaXcs (Kansas – 2007)
• Student performance in cyber charter schools was quite
negaXve compared to their face-to-face counterparts
(Ohio - 2009)
• Virtual charter school pupils median scores on the
mathemaXcs were almost always lower than statewide
medians during the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years
(Wisconsin - 2010)
Full-Time Online Learners

44. Supplemental Online Learners

45. Supplemental Online Learners

46. • Online credit recovery students more difficult and had
more negaXve abtudes about the subject than
students in the face-to-face course
• Online credit recovery students had lower assessment
scores, grades, and credit recovery rates than face-to-
face course students
• Longer-term academic outcomes have been found to be
about the same or worse for students in the online and
face-to-face credit recovery courses
Supplemental Online Learners

47. • Half of the online students wind up leaving within a year,
and when they do they’re oeen further behind
academically then when they started (Colorado, 2011)
• Compared with all students statewide, full-Xme online
students had significantly lower proficiency rates on the
math, but similar proficiency rates in reading (Minnesota -
2011)
• 90% of student a>ended cyber charter schools that were
rated as ineffecXve (Ohio - 2011)
• Nearly nine of every 10 students enrolled in at least one
statewide online course, all had graduaXon rates and math
passing rates below the state average (Arizona – 2011)
Full-Time Online Learners

48. • Students are falling further behind in reading and
math scores than students in brick-and-mortar schools
(NaXonal - 2012)
• Online students performed at similar levels in reading,
but at lower levels in mathemaXcs (Kansas, 2015)
• For students in online charters, the typical academic
gains for math equivalent to 180 fewer days of
learning and equivalent to 72 fewer days for reading
(NaXonal – 2015)
Full-Time Online Learners

49. Full-Time Online Learners
• approximately the same percentages of black students but
substan'ally more white students and fewer Hispanic
students relaXve to public schools in the states in which the
company operates
• 39.9% of [full-'me online learners] qualify for free or
reduced lunch, compared with 47.2% for the same-state
comparison group
• enroll a slightly smaller propor'on of students with
disabili'es than schools in their states and in the naXon as
a whole
• students classified as English language learners are
significantly under-represented
Miron, G. & Urschel, J. (2012). Understanding and improving full-)me virtual schools. Denver, CO:
NaXonal EducaXon Policy Center.

50. • have a similar proporXon of low-income students, but
a substanXally higher average of Hispanic students
• reported more than twice as many students per
teacher
• tended to score even lower on performance measures
than virtual schools
• on-Xme (or four-year) graduaXon rate was half the
naXonal average at 37.4%
Blended Learners

51. What Else Do We Know?

63. Two Key Points
• Introducing
technology alone is
never enough.
• Big gains in
productivity come
when new
technologies are
combined with new
ways of doing
business.

64. Two Key Points
• Introducing
technology alone is
never enough.
• Big gains in learning
come when new
technologies are
combined with new
ways of teaching.

65. What Can We Recommend?

66. Best Practices
• A strategy that shows promise
• A systematic study is designed to
investigate that strategy
• Aspects of the strategy are refined
• Large scale studies are designed to test
the strategy
• Strategy is found to be highly effective in a
variety of contexts over multiple studies

67. Best Practices
• A strategy that shows promise
• A systematic study is designed to
investigate that strategy
• Aspects of the strategy are refined
• Large scale studies are designed to test
the strategy
• Strategy is found to be highly effective in a
variety of contexts over multiple studies

68. • A number of scholars have documented the absence of rigorous
reviews of virtual schools (Barbour & Reeves, 2009).
• “based upon the personal experiences of those involved in the
practice of virtual schooling” (Cavanaugh, Barbour & Clark , 2009)
• “a paucity of research exists when examining high school
students enrolled in virtual schools, and the research base is
smaller still when the population of students is further narrowed to
the elementary grades” (Rice, 2006)
• Cavanaugh, Barbour and Clark (2009) defended this state of
affairs, writing that “in many ways, this [was] indicative of the
foundational descriptive work that often precedes experimentation
in any scientific field”
Best Practices

69. Research
• design-based approach to first
five years of VHS
– SRI International were external
evaluators
• identified seven goals and
focused all of their research
and evaluation
• resulted in:
– three annual evaluations
– one five-year evaluation
– two subject specific evaluations

70. • based on University of Florida’s Virtual
School Clearinghouse initiative
– AT&T Foundation-funded project from
2006-2009
• designed to provide K-12 online learning
programs, particularly statewide
supplemental programs, with data
analysis tools and metrics for school
improvement
• 13 of those K-12 online programs were
outlined in a publication entitled Lessons
Learned for Virtual Schools: Experiences
and Recommendations from the Field
Black, Ferdig, DiPietro (2008)
Research

72. Virtual School Teacher Roles
• Virtual School Designer: Course Development
– design instructional materials
– works in team with teachers and a virtual school to construct
the online course, etc.
• Virtual School Teacher: Pedagogy & Class Management
– presents activities, manages pacing, rigor, etc.
– interacts with students and their facilitators
– undertakes assessment, grading, etc.
• Virtual School Site Facilitator: Mentoring & Advocating
– local mentor and advocate for student(s)
– proctors & records grades, etc.
Davis (2007)

73. Promising Practices
Lack of professional development
• less than 40% of online teachers reported to
receiving any professional development before they
began teaching online (Rice & Dawley, 2007)
Lack of teacher preparation programs
• less than 2% of universities in the United States
provided any systematic training in their pre-service
or in-service teacher education programs (Kennedy
& Archambault, 2012)
Teaching Online Open Learning
• https://www.openteachertraining.org/

74. Promising Practices
Online teaching is more work
• asynchronous instruction in particular
What is becoming known about teacher training
• learn online in order to teach online
• design of online courses works better with
team of teachers and online/blended program

75. Promising Practices
Teaching Online Open Learning (GAVS)
• https://www.openteachertraining.org/
K-12 Blended & Online Learning (KSU)
• http://mooc.kennesaw.edu/courses/k12-
blended.php
Virtual Teacher Specialization (UC-Irvine)
• https://www.coursera.org/specializations/
virtual-teacher

76. Promising Practices
• Presence of an active, engaged local level
support person (Roblyer, Freeman,
Stabler, & Schneidmiller, 2007)
• Facilitator that focuses on soft learning
skills, not necessarily content (Barbour &
Mulcahy, 2004, 2009)

77. Promising Practices
National Research Center on Rural Education
Support, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
• training program that was provided as a part of
this research initiative included topics such as
issues for the first day of school, how to talk about
and support online assignments, potential student
fears, helping to develop time management skills,
assisting with the problem of too much work, what
to do when students become disengaged, and
how to ease students who are worried about their
grades (Irvin, Hannum, Farmer, de la Varre, &
Keane,2009)

78. Promising Practices
National Research Center on Rural Education Support,
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
• Those who undertook the training were retained at a higher
rate than students attending schools where the Virtual School
Facilitator did not participate in the training (Hannum, Irvin,
Lei, & Farmer, 2008)
• Effective facilitators were described as having being
individuals who had “a good, working relationship, who were
consistently responsive in their interactions with the teacher,
and engaged with and interested in their students”(de la
Varre, Keane, & Irvin, 2010, pp. 202– 203)
• Facilitator was important in sharing the teacher presence with
the Virtual School Teacher in the online learning environment,
increasing the students sense of community and decreasing
the sense of isolation felt by students (de la Varre, Keane, &
Irvin, 2011)

79. Promising Practices
Role of the parent
• full-time environment
– parent is responsible for significant instruction
– programs need to consider how to
• measure parental involvement (Liu, Black, Algina,
Cavanaugh, & Dawson, 2010)
• foster their engagement (Borup, Graham, & Davies,
2013; Halser Waters & Leong, 2014; Klein, 2006)
• overall findings
– parental involvement tends to decrease as
student performance increases (Borup, Graham,
& Davies, 2013)

80. Promising Practices
• Educational Success Prediction
Instrument
– technology use and technology self-efficacy
(10 items)
– achievement beliefs (6 items)
– risk-taking (6 items)
– organization strategies (3 items)
Roblyer, Davis, Mills, Marshall, & Pape (2008)

81. Promising Practices
• Student orientation for readiness skills in
online learning
– Jason Siko (sikojp@gmail.com)
• Online Learning Orientation Tool (MVU)
– http://olot.mivu.org.

82. Your
Questions
and
Comments

83. Associate Professor of Instructional Design
College of Education & Health Services
Touro University, California
mkbarbour@gmail.com
http://www.michaelbarbour.com