Michigan State University's Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting team has once again released results from a project designed to systematically collect information about how the MSU community uses computers, social media, and mobile technology.
The 2015 MSU Internet and Technology User Experience Survey data are available for anyone who wants to better understand tech usage among students, faculty, and staff in the MSU community.
“Our goal is to provide researchers, web developers, and the public with information to better understand how technology is used by those attending or working at higher education institutions,” said Sarah Swierenga, UARC Director.
Graham Pierce, UARC User Experience Researcher, helped found the groundbreaking project in 2011 as the MSU Internet Use and Opinion Survey, with the intent of collecting information and tracking the way people use and access MSU’s web presence.
“The 2015 tech report presents basic findings, but we make all data, tables, charts, and other analyses available on the site. We encourage others to conduct more fine-grained analysis for their individual purposes,” said Pierce.
The survey was distributed to two-thirds of all campus faculty, staff, and students in the spring of 2015. Questions ranged from rating technological expertise with different devices to whether or not MSU classes should make use of online content. The tech report includes comparisons of data from 2011, 2012, and 2015 to track change over time.
Among the findings:
- Smartphone usage has risen to be equal to that of both laptop computers and pen & paper, and smartphones and laptops are both used by more than 75% of the MSU community to access MSU content online. Touchscreen usage is now higher than computer mouse usage among students.
- While Facebook has faced competition in recent years from a variety of social media tools, it still has a powerful influence on social media users, with approximately 80% of the MSU community indicating regular use. YouTube is second (56.8%); Twitter is third (37.6%) and LinkedIn is a close fourth (36.5%).
- Approval of the use of online content and mobile devices in classes has not changed from 2011 level, with around 50%responding that MSU should rely on or use online content "a lot" or more, and just under 20%saying the same for mobile devices.
Visit http://usability.msu.edu/techsurvey/ for the report, charts, full dataset, and more. All materials are available for public use, provided the source is cited appropriately. Questions can be directed to Graham Pierce, User Experience Researcher, Michigan State University Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting, glpierce@msu.edu