Are digital natives a world-wide phenomenon? An investigation into South African first year students’ use and experience with technology

Are Malaysian Undergraduates ‘Digital Natives’ in the True Sense of the Word? A Quantitative Analysis

“…The students responded to a questionnaire designed by the research team based on a variety of questionnaires in the field (such as Margaryan et al 2011, Thinyane 2010) and the researcher" experiences as researchers and teachers. The questionnaire comprised two sections.…”

“…Studies undertaken in various parts of the globe have revealed a lack of uniformity in terms of access to technologies and usage of technologies among these young technology users. Thinyane (2010) for instance, found that first year South African university students from diverse backgrounds possessed differing levels of access to and use of both entrenched and newer technologies. This was also revealed by Kennedy, Judd, Churchward, and Gray"s (2008) study which also uncovered similar findings among first year Australian university students.…”

Devices, distractions and digital literacy: ‘Bring your own device’ to polytech

“…However, over time, studies have emerged to challenge the myth of the digital native. A study of South African first year university students (Thinyane, 2010) found participants were not interested in using Web 2.0 based technologies for study purposes, despite a 98.1 percent access to mobile phones. An Australian study by Kennedy, Judd, Churchward, Gray, and Krause (2008) Teachers and Curriculum, Volume 17, Issue 2, 2017 identified diversity in university students' access, use and preference for technologies.…”

Networked Learning, Stepping Beyond the Net Generation and Digital Natives

“…These include studies in the United States (Hargittai, 2010;Salaway, et al, 2008;Smith, et al, 2009;Borreson Caruso. 2010) andCanada (Salajan, et al, 2010;Bullen, et al, 2009) , Australia (Judd and Kennedy forthcoming;Kennedy, et al, 2006Kennedy, et al, , 2007Kennedy, et al, , 2008Kennedy, et al, , 2010Oliver and Goerke, 2007;Waycott, et al, 2009), United Kingdom (Margaryan, et al, 2011;Jones and Healing 2010a;Jones and Hosein 2010;Jones and Cross, 2009;Selwyn 2008), other European countries (Schulmeister, 2010;Ryberg, et al, 2010;Pedró, 2009), South Africa (Thinyane, 2010;Brown and Czerniewicz, 2010;Czerniewicz, et al, 2009), Chile (Sánchez, et al, 2010) and Hongkong (McNaught, et al, 2009). This empirical evidence from around the world, in contrasting economic conditions, shows that today's young students repeatedly prove to be a mixture of groups with various interests, motives, and behaviors, and never a single generational cohort with common characteristics.…”