Hospitality students’ perceptions of digital tools for learning and sustainable development (original) (raw)
Abstract
This paper interprets students’ perceptions of how they utilise technology for their learning and the link to sustainability and employability. A focus group approach is adopted with final year undergraduate hospitality students at three academic institutions in the UK, Switzerland and UAE. Diverse perceptions of the relationship between learning activities, eLearning tools, sustainability and employability are revealed. Comparisons are examined to better understand students’ perceptions of eLearning tools for sustainability. This paper highlights students’ awareness of the role of technology in sustainability and employability and calls on educators to promote a more integrated and multi-disciplinary approach to curriculum design.
Introduction
Technology-enabled learning (Thomas & Thomas, 2012), a growing awareness of sustainable issues at the institutional level (Djordjevic and Cotton, 2011, Yuan and Zuo, 2013) and a concentration on graduate employability skills (Jackson, 2013) are all significant changes in higher education. It has been acknowledged that technology can make a contribution to sustainable development (Ali and Frew, 2012, Kamp, 2006) and Middleton (2009, p. 187) suggests that technology provides students with opportunities for “engaging meaningfully with ideas of sustainability.” Moreover, Pavlova and Huang (2013) have argued that sustainability will be a key graduate employability skill demanded by employers in the near future. Despite the growing body of work in these individual aforementioned areas, there is little academic research investigating these multi-disciplinary subjects. Through this exploratory study, students’ perceptions of eLearning tools for sustainable development and the impact on their employability will be investigated. Specifically, the research question is phrased as:
do hospitality students perceive the use of digital (i.e. technology enabled) tools as a facilitator of learning and an enhancer of sustainable development during the learning process and as a contributor to their employability?
Technology enabled learning (also known as eLearning, online learning and digital learning) has been extensively discussed and researched (Bristow et al., 2011, Strauss and Hill, 2007). This concept includes applications such as virtual learning environment, webinars, blogs, wikis, crowdsourcing, mobile learning and classroom use of social media (London & Hall, 2011). Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have invested in such technologies to keep abreast of the rapid technological changes and this new generation of hi-tech immersed students, coined “digital natives” by Prensky (2001), p. 1. More recent research acknowledges a radical shift in the learning process is needed to exploit the use of technology, particularly Web 2.0 (Liburd & Christensen, 2013) in order to develop newer ways of teaching and learning (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012). However, these rapidly morphing technologies pose challenges for educators who struggle to engage students and implement more flexible modes of learning (Eastman, Iyer, & Eastman, 2011). Research exists which demonstrate the relationship between digital tools and how students exploit them in their learning activities (diFilipo, 2011, Kay and Lauricella, 2011) but little is conducted specifically from a hospitality perspective. Therefore in answering the research question, an understanding of how hospitality students use digital tools for their learning activities will be established.
Concurrently, many HEIs have embarked on facilitating sustainable development as a cornerstone in their strategy and this effort has come to the fore with the United Nations declaring 2004–2014 as the decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The most renowned definition of sustainable development originates from the Brundtland Report which declared it as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 43). This definition is employed as this research focuses on sustainability in higher education. In this paper, we examine hospitality students’ use of digital tools for their learning activities and how this adoption allows them to make a contribution to sustainable development. The term sustainability and sustainable development will be used interchangeably throughout this paper for ease of reading.
Additionally, HEIs have devoted considerable resources into understanding and developing undergraduate employability skills (Jackson, 2013) due to heightened requests from governments and industry for better prepared graduates (Wilton, 2011). There is a large and growing body of research on graduate employability (Knight and Yorke, 2004, Pool and Sewell, 2007) but Tymon (2013) comments that research into undergraduate students’ perceptions of the importance of employability skills is limited. There is less research from a hospitality perspective on students’ perceptions of their employability skills beyond that of Conneally and Egan (2012) that focused on numeracy and Weber, Crawford, Lee, and Dennison (2013) which examined soft skills competencies. To satisfy the research question, this study seeks to understand if students perceive the use of digital tools for sustainable development as contributing to their employability.
The hospitality sector has discovered the advantage of sustainability as a selling point, while recognising that their operations have led to wide-ranging impacts on the environment (Sloan, Legrand, & Chen, 2013). Research indicates that hospitality graduates should have know-how of sustainability (Boley, 2011) and it is imperative for hospitality educators to have advanced knowledge of such contemporary issues to equip students to be successful, competent graduates (Barber et al., 2011, Millar et al., 2010). Therefore, this paper is significant in a number of ways. It links the specific learning activities to the digital tools that students utilise, which should help educators select the appropriate tools to direct eLearning activities in a more meaningful way. It identifies the learning-related digital tools that students perceive to be useful for sustainability. Such a focus would assist educators in aligning their institutional sustainable strategy to the learning process and create awareness amongst stakeholders concerning the activities that engage students towards a more sustainable perspective. Lastly, it identifies students’ perceptions of sustainability as an employability skill. Gauging their perceptions is important for curriculum designers and educators as it allows them to better prepare graduates for a complex and dynamic world of work.
Section snippets
Sustainable development in higher education
The education sector is being challenged with regards to its purpose and how it is preparing graduates given the changes occurring in the environment (Von der Heidt & Lamberton, 2011). Education and learning are critical components in achieving sustainable development and HEIs are being urged to incorporate and support these principles (Barth, Giodemann, Rieckmann, and Stoltenberg, 2007). HEIs are seeking to do so through ESD and sustainability has now become a critical issue in all spheres of
Methodology
Primary data for this research are collected through the use of focus groups. This technique is considered appropriate as it provides a deeper understanding of the subject under investigation and facilitates more thorough questioning to provide wider insights into the participants view, feelings and perceptions (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009). This method enables harvesting of rich data in a limited time period (Wilson, 2012) and helps identify areas for future investigation, given the
Findings and discussion
The findings have been grouped according to the themes in the literature review, which are digital tools and learning activities, digital tools and sustainable development and digital tools, sustainable development and employability. Within each theme, the findings are presented and discussed in order of Switzerland, UK and UAE.
Conclusion
This research provides insights into how hospitality students engage with digital tools for learning within a wider context of sustainability and their employability. It has brought to the fore the types of digital tools these students engage with for different facets of their learning. The Swiss and UK groups use laptops, desktops, Google and virtual sharing for learning, whereas the UAE group prioritised online databases and social media sites. This information is essential for hospitality
Alisha Ali is a Senior Lecturer in Hospitality Business Management at Sheffield Hallam University. Her research focuses on investigating the uses and applications of ICT for sustainable tourism, sustainable development, technology applications and impacts for tourism and hospitality, innovation in tourism and hospitality and online research methods. Alisha teaches and supervises in the areas of innovation, IT, sustainability, hospitality operations and career management on the undergraduate and
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Cited by (34)
Alisha Ali is a Senior Lecturer in Hospitality Business Management at Sheffield Hallam University. Her research focuses on investigating the uses and applications of ICT for sustainable tourism, sustainable development, technology applications and impacts for tourism and hospitality, innovation in tourism and hospitality and online research methods. Alisha teaches and supervises in the areas of innovation, IT, sustainability, hospitality operations and career management on the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
Hilary Murphy is a Professor and Researcher of Information Technology and Digital Marketing at Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne and an Honorary Research fellow in the Marketing Faculty at Strathclyde University, Glasgow. Dr. Murphy has published widely in industry publications and in academic journals on digital marketing, more recently on social media and IT benchmarking. She is currently working on several Swiss government funded projects in addition to hotel industry missions.
Sanjay Nadkarni׳s research and teaching interests are in digital strategy and business analytics in tourism and hospitality. He is currently the Director of Research and Associate Professor at the Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management, Dubai. In addition to his teaching and academic publishing, Sanjay regularly engages in consultancy and advisory assignments. He is passionate about the role of digital technologies and tourism in poverty alleviation and development and is an open source evangelist.
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