The results from the point of view of employers are described in another article entitled Employers satisfied with graduates ICT skills by Pekka Tenhonen.

The SEUSISS Project (Surveys of European Universities Skills in Information and Communication Technology for Staff and Students) has completed a 30 month study in which 13,000 students, staff and employers across Europe responded to our surveys and interviews.

In the context of the European Union’s policy to promote mobility of workers and students within Europe, we were interested to know the extent of comparability of ICT skills and standards which would enable students and graduates to move between countries, given the importance of ICT to work and study.

The ability to use ICT fluently and with confidence is an essential skillset in a rapidly changing world. ICT skills are vital for employment, for education, and increasingly for everyday life. Consequently, there is continuing concern among employers, governments and universities about graduate ICT skills, because graduates are the leaders of change and innovation in many walks of life.

What did we discover?

1. We found some clear similarities between students at all the universities. They were mostly young adults studying full time, with more females than males. Ownership of PCs and ancillary equipment (including Internet access) was high among both new and established students, and they had good ICT skills, as measured by the number of ICT applications that they reported they could use unassisted (we did not attempt to assess their competences ourselves). Almost all students could handle word processors, web browsers, email and chat. New students had less experience than established students with presentation managers (e.g. PowerPoint) and bibliographic databases, suggesting that they acquire these skills during their courses.

2. The main sources of help and support for ICT skills development of both new and established students were friends and family, followed by self-tuition. Most students thought that there was rather little integration of ICT skills development in their courses, irrespective of the number of ICT courses available or the extent to which integration was stated to be the university ICT skills strategy.

3. ICT was seen as important for their future careers by the great majority of students, those nearing graduation as well as those just leaving school. Near graduates were confident about their ability to cope with ICT in the workplace, and new students about their ability to cope with it in their studies. In fact, use of ICT in university courses was quite high for many students, with 26% reporting "daily use" and 47% "1-3 times weekly" on average. This was much higher than was reported by most to have been the case in their schools.

Interestingly in the university with the highest provision and the highest use of ICT, only 20% of established students viewed it as "very important" and 27% saw it as of only "some value" (the highest rating on this low measure). By contrast in the universities with the lowest provision and use, 48% saw ICT as "very important" in their careers. It is possible that a greater awareness of the ‘true’ place of ICT in education and employment leads to less emphasis being placed on it.

4. Owning a PC was strongly associated with self-assessed skills, confidence and frequency of use of ICT in studies, and the minority of students without PCs appeared to be significantly disadvantaged in these respects. Where on-campus provision of ICT was good, they compensated by using this equipment more, but where it was less adequate they were less frequent users and had to seek other PC sites such as cybercafes. PC owners used ICT in their studies more often, mostly at home, but also on campus, and felt more skilled and confident than non-owners. However, owning a PC did not over-ride the effects of low demands for ICT use in courses within the university.

5. Overall, females tended to self-assess slightly less highly on ICT skills and usage than males, but not on its importance to their careers, ownership of PCs, or Internet access. They also appeared to be slightly less confident in their assessment of their own ICT skills. These may be manifestations of general male:female differences, as they are seen in other contexts. (1)

6. Average ICT skills were age-dependent, with the most skilled students being concentrated in the age range 21-35 (index = 7.6), with a little less skill in the youngest students (7.3) and much less in the oldest (6 or below). These mature entrants may not have been in working situations which encouraged development of a wide range of skills as much as the younger students, or perhaps lack confidence and so self-rate less highly.

7. Small average ICT skill differences were found between new entrants intending to study in different academic subject domains with students in Science and Engineering scoring highest, followed by Social Sciences and then Arts and Clinical/para-clinical. Although one could predict this stereotyping, the mean difference of one (7 to 8 skills) does not suggest that new entrants to arts faculties and schools in these universities are non-technical or technophobic but that they will be equally open to use of ICT in their studies and careers.

8. When asked about their confidence towards using ICT in their university studies, one quarter of new students were very confident and just under half were confident. There were however, variations between universities with implications for their student ICT induction and training.

9. Many established students used considerable ICT in their studies. In some universities 40-60% used it daily. However this high usage was not uniform and the proportion of students using ICT monthly or less ranged from 3% to 39%. Usage varied by subject area with science and engineering students the most frequent and clinical students the least frequent users. When new students were asked to predict or estimate the extent to which they would use ICT in their studies at university and this was compared to what actually was used by established students, at most universities students were using more or much more than the prediction. In a few courses the prediction was less leading to disappointment in ICT use.

10. Despite a general similarity between students at the seven universities, there were some variations. This was despite the fact that this group of universities are superficially similar, and would expect to be able to exchange students and staff relatively easily. Examples of variations were in average ICT skill level, extent of use of ICT in studies, and where they studied. A more detailed analysis of these variations is given in our full report. There was no evidence of a "north-south divide"; that is, there were no systematic differences between students in northern and southern universities in this study. How we computed the overall "ICT skills index".

We asked students to rate themselves in terms of their own skills with ten well-known standard software applications. We then computed an overall "ICT skills index" either "restrictively" by totalling for each student those skills that they self-rated as being "able to do alone", or "permissively" by totalling all those students who self-rated as being "able to do alone" plus those who said that they could do this action "with some help". The maximum value is 10 (ie can use all these packages to do the given tasks) and the minimum is 0 (can use none). "Readiness profiles" of new and established students at each university have been developed using these indices and can be found in the Report Tables 4.7 and 4.8.