Digitally mastered? Technology and transition in the experience of taught postgraduate students

Abstract

Taught Master's students have been largely overlooked in research into learners' engagement with digital technologies. This article reports work to redress this imbalance, in which an extended email correspondence was conducted with 23 Master's students. Specifically, it investigates (1) the extent to which these students start their courses both functionally competent in the use of IT and digitally literate, and (2) the relationship between students' engagement with digital technologies and their experience of transition to postgraduate study in five areas: knowledge and skills, autonomy, ‘deeper’ learning, enculturation into an academic community, and self-concept. Findings suggest that students may initially be less functionally competent in IT than might be expected, but use these tools in an informed manner. Engagement with a wider range of digital technologies parallels their shift from novice to expert practice and their developing self-concept as researchers; however, non-digital means also remain important in mediating all aspects of transition.

Keywords:

• learner experience
• higher education
• Master's students
• transition
• digital technologies

Acknowledgements

We record our appreciation to the JISC Learner Experiences of E-learning programme for funding the Thema project, to our co-researcher Fawei Geng, and to our two anonymous reviewers.