Where are the students? A study of Norwegian technology students’ perceptions of emerging trends in higher education

Abstract

Teachers in higher education in Norway have over the last decade reported reduced physical attendance in lectures, students not using the textbooks, and low academic performance. Also, there is an intensified institutional pressure to make use of digital tools and flipped classroom paradigms. To obtain better insight into students’ perceptions of these issues a class of computer science students’ perceptions were probed using a comprehensive questionnaire. The results confirm some of the claims that students want more digital learning such as videos, but perhaps not as black and white as it is often presented. Implications of the results is that one should not simply follow a single approach but employ an array of varied learning activities and materials.