ELI at Kanda University of International Studies

ELI lecturer Thomas Lockley has published an article in the September 2011 issue of the Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal. Publication information follows:

Lockley, T. (2011). Pre-university experience of ICT and Self-Access Learning in Japan. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 2(3), 182-194.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can play a key role in self-access
learning and the organization of self-access centres (SACs) (Reinders & Lázaro,
2007). The generation of young people currently at university has been labeled
“digital natives” (Prensky, 2001), yet it would seem that many of these “natives” in
Japan seem to lack the necessary ICT skills to use in the university context
(Castellano, Mynard & Rubesch, 2011; Williams, 2011). This paper assesses the
current situation of Japanese young people’s pre-university ICT experience and its
implications for self-access learning. Do they actually lack the necessary skills to
engage with self-access in an ICT context? Or does the reality in fact show that this
perception is wrong and if so why? This paper will answer the questions through
original research (N=105) and reference to the literature, globally and in Japan. It
finds that students have more competence than previously believed and ventures some
reasons for this previous misperception.