Abstract

Students interact with peers and instructors for course purposes both within and outside of class spaces. This study explored how post-secondary students communicate outside of class for course purposes, and how they use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to do so. Sixty-nine students were interviewed during a qualitative pilot study to explore their communication and study patterns outside of class. Pilot results were used to create a survey. Survey results (N=438) indicated six factors motivated students to communicate with peers and instructors outside of class for course purposes: students' perceived usefulness of their peers; trust of peers; their perception of instructors; preference to work independently; overall perception of the course; and, perceived threat (i.e. sense of vulnerability about their ability). Perceived threat, perception of instructors, and students' preference to work independently were significant in predicting whether students turned to instructors outside of class. These findings reinforce and advance existing research on students' formal help-seeking behaviour. Students communicated with peers and instructors both in person and via ICTs. However, it was difficult to associate ICT preference with generation. There was no significant difference between the Net Generation and non-Net Generation in their use of email to communicate with peers for course purposes. There were significant differences between generations in how often they used instant messaging, text message, Facebook and WebCT when communicating with peers for course purposes. There were also significant differences between how often the two groups talked with peers in person and via phone for course purposes. The uneven results and small effect sizes suggest generation may not be a strong nor consistent variable for understanding students' ICT use in education. Finally, results indicated students used institutionally provided ICTs, such email and WebCT, far less than commonly available ICTs, such as personal email accounts, instant messaging and text messaging when communicating with peers of their own volition. The findings suggest that educators need to better understand the social dynamics by which students communicate and use ICTs, in order to inform policies and decisions.