Anecdotal evidence from schools and universities support an emerging body of research which indicates that while young people actively and confidently use technology, they do not use it as described by the proponents of the Net Generation. The idea of a Net Generation is based on the early observations and social commentary of a few highly publicised individuals
who relied heavily on observation and used catchy labels to describe how young people were using the Internet and electronic resources across a range of contexts, rather than basing their findings on rigorous academic research. There is a huge gap between the attributes assigned to the Net Generation and emerging research reports which indicate that today’s
students do not use the Internet and associated technologies either efficiently or effectively when seeking information. Much of the early commentary and research about the Net Generation also tended to concentrate on asking young people to describe their levels of use and what they thought they were doing, rather than examining exactly how they were using
The Internet and for information-seeking
Neither side of the current discourse satisfactorily explains or describes how young adults use the Internet and electronic resources to satisfy their information needs. Therefore, theunderstanding of how young adults seek and interact with information; and the attitudes, beliefs and feelings they bring with them when engaging with information in the online environment; is an important first step in developing strategies to prepare them for tertiary
education, the workplace and a future where online information will be the norm. As more information is placed online, governments turn to ‘virtual’ service provision, education systems embrace elearning initiatives and economies use ICTs to conduct business; this investigation provides a timely check-up of this next generation and their actual capabilities to use
technology for effective information-seeking.As with all research studies where a small target population is used to collect data, it is not possible to make generalisations about a whole population or in this case, a generation. This is a major flaw in the idea of a Net Generation since proponents do not consider the variables introduced by socioeconomic status,
educational opportunities language
cultural/ethnic and religious differences, all of which may affect an individual’s capacity to access and engage with technology. Since this research used the Net Generation attributes as a starting point, the only constant variable for the target group whose behaviours are examined is their age – between 18-22 years or the upper end of the Net Generation group.
Limiting the age group was convenient for the researcher since these participants were easier to access, however, this age distribution does not consider younger members of the Net Generation who may be using technology differently to their older counterparts. This factor is explored to some extent in the research. This research can only provide an in-depth picture of how a specific group of young people in the upper end of the Net Generation age group were
using a range of technologies at a specific time in their lives. In this case the data collection occurred during a twelve month period from early 2007 to early 2008. It represents a snapshot in time. While new technologies have since emerge these benefits. Address directly concerns that some states report as barriers to adoption. In a recent study of states that offer some form of remote support services, four reported having no problems with implementation, while
eleven had some difficulties
(Wagner et al., 2022). The issues involved a variety of concerns that should be studied and addressed even while expectations are that these services will offer the benefits that have subjectively been noted. questionnaire to encompass three kinds of variables: opinion, attribute and behavioural variableAccording (Bell, 2014), the questionnaire should be pilot tested prior to using it to collect data. The goal of the pilot test is to refine the questionnaire
that respondents will have no problems in answering the questions and there will be no problems in recording the data (Saunders et al., 2009). The pilot testing usually comprises two stages: asking an expert or group of experts to comment on the representativeness and suitability of your questions and, in a subsequent stage, perform the pilot test. (Saunders et al., 2009) states that as well as allowing suggestions to be made on the structure of your
questionnaire, this will help establish content validity (the extent to which the questionnaire provides adequate coverage of the investigative questions) and face validity (“whether the questionnaire appears to make sense”). Both the supervisor and co-supervisor of this work were selected as the experts consulted to address the first stage of the pilot testing. Both of them provided their consent on the questionnaire’s representativeness and suitability given
Conclusion
that the questionnaire was adopted from a previous framework explored in the literature. Subsequently, the pilot test was conducted withKey findings from the research are summarised below. Findings from the anonymous Web survey were explored further in the tasks and interviews. The Web survey was used as a filter for the selection of participants for Phase Two of the data collection.he participant group overall, presented as very
homogeneous in nature, both in levels of use and levels of confidence, and how they were using technology in their everyday lives. Findings from the data collected in Phase One (Web survey) was consistent with data collected in Phase Two (tasks and interviews) the CEO of healphant, which has also provided his approval on the questionnaire’s comprehensibility,



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