The student profile

You would now be starting to gain a greater appreciation for the current higher education environment, so let's turn to the diversity of another key stakeholder - the student cohort - and the possible implications for this in our teaching. Regardless of your context, your students will be diverse in many respects.

Globalisation has empowered individuals through the emergence and convergence of advanced technologies. This empowerment moves beyond work to include education. The characteristics that stand out as being appealing to distance education students are flexibility and location. The flexibility of being able to study ‘anytime and anywhere’ allows students to schedule their study around other commitments, such as work and family. The constraints of work and family also often mean that students are unable to attend on campus, opting to study at home or other convenient places, thus reducing some of the time and financial constraints often associated with travelling to a campus.

Research into the characteristics of students who undertake distance education identified that they are older, more mature, have more life experience and are generally juggling work and/or family commitments in comparison with the traditional student demographic of 18 to 22 years of age, studying full-time and on-campus. Even this is changing, with many of the 18 to 22 year olds working more than 15 hours per week whilst studying.

For your information, Devlin, Kift, Nelson, Smith and Mckay (2012) have developed resources Links to an external site. relating to effectively teaching and supporting students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. You may like to review these resources given that this cohort of students is becoming more numerous.