What works and why? Student perceptions of ‘useful’ digital technology in university teaching and learning Michael Henderson, Neil Selwyn * and Rachel Aston Faculty of Education, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia Digital technologies are now an integral aspect of the university student experience. As such, academic research has understandably focused on the potential of various digital technologies to enable, extend and even ‘enhance’ student learning. This paper offers an alternate perspective on these issues by exploring students’ actual experiences of digital technology during their academic studies – highlighting the aspects of digital technology use that students themselves see as particularly helpful and/or useful. Drawing on a survey of 1658 undergraduate students, the paper identifies 11 distinct digital ‘benefits’– ranging from flexibilities of time and place, ease of organizing and managing study tasks through to the ability to replay and revisit teaching materials, and learn in more visual forms. While these data confirm digital technologies as central to the ways in which students experience their studies, they also suggest that digital technologies are not ‘transforming’ the nature of university teaching and learning. As such, university educators perhaps need to temper enthusiasms for what might be achieved through technology-enabled learning and develop better understandings of the realities of students’ encounters with digital technology. Keywords: student experience; technology; internet; undergraduates; student conceptions Introduction Differences have long persisted between the well-proven potential of technology- enabled learning and the less consistent realities of technology use within university teaching and learning. On the one hand, the potential of digital technologies to enhance student learning has been well established. Benefits include the enhanced diversity of provision and equity of access to higher education, alongside the increased efficiency of delivery and personalization of learning processes. Much enthusiasm has also surrounded the development of digital technologies along increasingly personal- ized, remote, adaptive and data-driven lines. Digital technologies of this nature are clearly integral to the future of university education around the world. The imperative for technologically driven forms of higher education is seen to be exacerbated by the changing backgrounds and dispositions of the people now entering universities as undergraduate students. While the crude essentializing notion of the ‘digital native’ who was ‘born digital’ has been rightly criticized, the belief remains among many commentators that incoming cohorts of university students are more © 2015 Society for Research into Higher Education *Corresponding author. Email: neil.selwyn@monash.edu Studies in Higher Education, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1007946 Downloaded by [Monash University Library] at 22:21 19 April 2015