Report of the Printing and Devices Survey (December 2013)
Devices Section

  1. Abstract

The following document explores the responses of students to the Students’ Union’s Printing and Devices Survey, which held questions regarding:

1)The amount of devices that students owned, and the frequency that individual electronic devices were brought onto campus.

2)The Operating System, battery life and age of laptops that students were using.

3)The printing behaviour of students in relation to: the amount that they receive in printer credits, the way in which they receive their lecture materials, and the way in which they submit their coursework.

  1. Methodology

Respondents were directed to complete an online survey hosted by SurveyMonkey, and advertised using the Students’ Union’s communication channels; the respondents were then able to skip sections of the survey that were not relevant to them (for example, if they did not have portable devices). Survey completion was incentivised by entering respondents into a prize draw; respondents were invited to enter their email address if they wished to take part in this prize-draw, with the ability to opt out if they wished.

  1. Limitations and Issues

The survey captured basic demographic details of respondents, limited only to their School/Lead Department and their year/level of study: for the purposes of analysis, Schools have been re-coded to the Faculty that they are administrated within. No other demographic details have been collected for respondents.

With regards to the year and level of study, PGR students were able to complete the survey, however the survey, due to the nature of its subject matter was more naturally aligned to completion for Undergraduate and PGT students – respondents were not warned by this fact, but the extremely low turn-out of Postgraduate students (n=24) suggests that many of these students naturally opted out of the survey.

An issue was felt when respondents were asked to identify their electronic devices, with many respondents either answering with brand-names (such as iPad, which was re-coded to ‘Tablet’), or naming electronic devices that would have no impact on the results of any policy development work (such as ‘lamp); erroneous results were either re-coded or deleted.

  1. Turn-out and Demography

The survey had a turn-out of 1005 valid responses, with a confidence interval of 5 when posited over the entire student population (assuming 99% confidence level), or 4.1 for the undergraduate population (due to the low level of response from the postgraduate population.

There is a slight weighting within survey responses to those who study in the Faculty of Social Sciences, although this is not sufficient enough to establish the need for corrective weighting within analysis, and this is broadly in line with the demography of the university itself.

There is substantive weighting within survey response to those in their first three years of undergraduate study – as has been noted, the survey itself was primarily designed for undergraduate students, and this has been established within the demography of respondents. When removing foundation year and PG students, then results are broadly in line with the campus make-up, but extreme care should be taken when viewing those data provided by smaller demographic groups.

The demographic breakdown is as follows:

Faculty of Study (table 1) / n= / %
Arts / 220 / 21.9
Engineering / 114 / 11.3
Medicine and Health Sciences / 179 / 17.8
Science / 215 / 21.4
Social Sciences / 277 / 27.6
Total / 1005 / 100
Year of Study (table 2) / n= / %
Foundation / 7 / 0.7
1st / 302 / 30.0
2nd / 292 / 29.1
3rd / 283 / 28.2
4th / 71 / 7.1
5th / 22 / 2.2
6th / 4 / 0.4
PGT / 20 / 2.0
PGR / 4 / 0.4
TOTAL / 1005 / 100
  1. Patterns of electronic device ownership

Across the survey, a total of 2565 electronic deviceswere identified as being owned, with less than 0.5% of respondents indicating that they own no electronic devices (n=4); the most commonly identified individual item owned was a laptop (n=956)[1], followed by a Smartphone (n=887), with a large drop-off after this point.

Individual Devices owned (Table 3) / n= / % of total devices owned
Laptop / 956 / 37.3
Smartphone / 887 / 34.6
Tablet / 298 / 11.6
E-Reader / 228 / 8.9
Desktop Computer / 134 / 5.2
Notebook / 62 / 2.4
No devices owned / 4 / N/A
Total Devices Owned / 2565 / 100

The vast majority of respondents also indicated that they own more than one device, with 29 different ownership patterns identified – as is evident from the large amount of respondents who identified that they own either laptops or smartphones, the most commonly identified ownership combination was owning both a laptop and smartphone, with nearly 40% of all respondents stating that they owned them both (n=399), and many more owning a device combination featuring both a laptop and a smartphone. It is worth noting, finally, that more people identified that they own all of the devices identified (n=5) than owned none of the devices (n=4); what is clear, therefore is that, nearly unanimously, all respondents own at least some kind of electronic device, and are integrating them into both their personal and study life at least in some way.

There is a slightly different picture in terms of the integration of technology into respondents’ study lives, if the frequency of which students bring their various electronic devices onto campus is used as a crude estimate. Students were most likely to bring their Smartphone onto campus daily (which is perhaps, inevitable), but respondents were far less likely to bring other devices onto campus on a daily basis, and indeed, quite starkly – of all the students who have signified that they own laptops, students are more likely to bring their laptops onto campus once a month or less (n=396) than they are to bring their laptops onto campus daily (n=228).

Combinations of device ownership (Table 4) / n= / % response
Single Device only
Smartphone only / 6 / 0.6
Notebook Only / 2 / 0.2
Laptop Only / 78 / 7.8
Desktop Only / 1 / 0.1
1 Device Owned Total / 87 / 8.7
Two Devices owned
Smartphone and Laptop / 399 / 39.7
Tablet and Laptop / 7 / 0.7
E-Reader and Laptop / 11 / 1.1
Smartphone and Notebook / 4 / 0.4
Smartphone and Desktop Computer / 8 / 0.8
Tablet and Notebook / 4 / 0.4
Notebook and Laptop / 2 / 0.2
Laptop and Desktop Computer / 2 / 0.2
2 Devices owned total / 437 / 43.5
Three Devices owned
Smartphone, Tablet and Laptop / 172 / 17.1
Smartphone, E-Reader and Laptop / 95 / 9.5
Smartphone, Laptop and Desktop / 44 / 4.4
Smartphone, Laptop and E-Reader / 4 / 0.4
Smartphone, Laptop and Notebook / 11 / 1.1
Smartphone, Notebook and E-Reader / 4 / 0.4
Smartphone, Tablet and Notebook / 2 / 0.2
Smartphone, Tablet and Desktop / 3 / 0.3
Tablet, Laptop and E-Reader / 4 / 0.4
Tablet, Laptop and desktop computer / 2 / 0.2
Smartphone, Desktop and E-reader / 2 / 0.2
Smartphone, Notebook and Desktop / 3 / 0.3
Laptop, Desktop and E-Reader / 1 / 0.1
Smartphone, Tablet and E-Reader / 1 / 0.1
3 devices owned total / 348 / 34.6
More than Three Devices owned
More than 3 devices owned total / 129 / 12.8
No devices owned / 4 / 0.4
Total response / 1005 / 100.0

These data, of course, could be a distraction – it could be that respondents are integrating their smartphones into their study lives seamlessly, although this would be unlikely. It is also clear that these data do not explore the reasons that respondents don’t bring their other devices onto campus: it could be that respondents aren’t bringing their laptops onto campus for reasons unrelated to study,such as: fear of crime, relative weight, and inconvenience. It could also be for quite valid study reasons, such as the ease of access of campus computers, or that they primarily do independent study from home.

It is a fact that this is only a sample, and that far more students who do own devices, and are bringing them onto campus daily aren’t completing this survey, and that these data should be handled with care; however, it would appear from these data that on a given day, far more people don’t have devices other than smartphones on campus than have them on hand at any given time (as has been discussed, this may not be for reasons of study). Keeping the relative frequency in mind, however, it is worth doing further exploration into the way in which campus provisions are being integrated into mobile platforms, particularly the way in which they are being integrated to smartphone and tablet platforms (those who do own tablets are bringing them onto campus regularly).

Whilst social factors aren’t explored, these data do explore some of the technical reasons why respondents may not wish to bring their laptops onto campus, such as the laptop’s age, battery life and technological sophistication – it is for these reasons that it is worthwhile exploring laptop usage among students separately from other devices (particularly with campus wide projects ongoing that are exploring integrating students’ own devices into assessment).

  1. Laptop Usage among students

Firstly, it must be stressed that this study did not measure the way in which students are using their laptops, and the way in which they are being integrated into their studies: students could own laptops for reasons that are tangential to the educational experience, for example to view media or to socialise; however, given the relative frequency some of them are bringing them onto campus, it is presumably the case that many respondents are using their laptops in their study lives. It is also notable that just because respondents aren’t bringing their laptops onto campus daily doesn’t mean that they aren’t using them to study daily: their primary study location could be their home, or they could simply not come onto campus every day (this study did not measure the amount of contact time that respondents received, and this could be an interesting correlation).

From these data, however, it may be that there are technological reasons why students are not regularly bringing their laptops on a daily basis. The survey collected the following data about the respondent’s laptop: their age, battery life and operating system, as well as the frequency with which they bring them onto campus[2]; these data can form an indicator of the form of technical constraints and benefits that respondents face in their laptop usage, as well as being a blunt indicator of their buying habits.

6.1Age of Laptops

There is an approximation of the age of the laptop and the year of study, with it appearing that respondents buy a single laptop to last for the entire of the university careers – around ½ of all respondents have a laptop that’s age maps against their year of study. This indicates that respondents are investing in one laptop and expecting it to continue working for the entirety of their undergraduate programme, with the small sample of PGT students suggesting that they, perhaps, buy a new laptop when starting their postgraduate qualifications or, in all likelihood, when the laptop has reached the end of its life span (each year of study has a proportion of respondents that owns a laptop under 1 year old).

It appears that there is a growing popularity with Mac models amongst respondents, with the number of respondents owning a Mac laptop far higher among those in Years 1 (n=79) and 2 (n=70) than in subsequent years; some care must be taken when using these data, however, as the sample sizes get far smaller after year 3. Whilst these data present a picture whereby students in their earlier years are purchasing a mac laptop, it is notable that a large proportion of respondents year on year (between 19%+25%) signifying that they own Mac laptops: it is perhaps, therefore, unfair to paint a picture of a growing trend towards ownership of Mac products, but more of a consistent minority of students tending to favour these products, although the precise reasons (social capital, relative weight, relative battery life, etc.) aren’t explored within the survey.

Whilst there is a broadly consistent proportion of respondents using Mac products, the overwhelming majority are tending to use Windows products (although, has been stated – make and model has not been established within the survey) – what is notable, however, is that the age of the laptop doesn’t affect whether it’s a Windows or a Mac laptop: there is a similar proportion of Windows laptops among new laptops as there is among older laptops (between 70+80%) - although there are proportionally slightly more Mac laptops less than a year old than there are of other ages. This could be for a number of reasons such as price, brand loyalty or integration into campus wide networks, but it is apparent that respondents aren’t tending to change their buying habits when replacing laptops have reached the end of their life-span: a Mac buyer will probably continue to buy a Mac product when replacing a laptop, and a Windows user won’t change Operating System when purchasing a new laptop.

These data, however, do establish that among respondents, a sizeable minority will purchase a Mac laptop (particularly in both Arts and Social Science), and campus arrangements, for example in bulk buying arrangements of software, should reflect that some users do favour Mac products.

Table 5 - Operating System Frequency vs. faculty of study / Windows / Mac / Linux
Arts / 162 / 55 / 0
Engineering / 85 / 23 / 0
Medicine and Health Sciences / 149 / 17 / 0
Science / 163 / 41 / 5
Social Sciences / 179 / 89 / 3

6.2Frequency that Laptops are brought onto campus

Whilst there is a broadly consistent picture in the forms of laptops that are owned by respondents, there is a very different picture in the frequency of how often they bring them onto campus.

As was stated previously, there may be a varied picture in the reasons why respondents aren’t bringing their devices onto campus, they may be, for example social (as respondents are primarily working from home), or be related to things not measured within the survey (such as weight); however, there do appear to be a few core technical reasons why respondents favour not bringing their laptops onto campus.

When starting to explore the reasons for not bringing laptops onto campus, it is worth exploring firstly the age of the laptop – are the respondents who have older laptops less likely to bring their laptops onto campus than those with laptops of less than a year old?

As was stated earlier, respondents most commonly declared that they were bringing their laptops onto campus less than once a month (n=320), with the next most commonly selected option being daily (n=227), this suggests that a number of students are bringing laptops onto campus on a daily basis, and using them in their study lives.

What is, however, interesting is the way in which the age of a laptop affects the frequency that it is brought onto campus and used; respondents with laptops of over 2 years old were far more likely not to be bringing their laptops onto campus, with nearly 50% of respondents who own laptops of 2-3 years old bringing their laptops onto campus either once a month or less (n=119) – this is in comparison to laptops of less than one year old, where a similar proportion of respondents are bringing their laptops onto campus more than once a week (n=128).

It is therefore maybe true that what defines whether a respondent brings the laptop onto campus on a regular basis isn’t defined by anything to do with the respondent, but to do with the laptop itself. There seems to be as a pattern that is brought forth when exploring the battery life of the laptops that are being brought onto campus, with laptops that have a battery life that can sustain several hours on campus far more likely to use them on campus on a regular basis.

It is self-evident that laptops have a limited battery life, and that wear and tear will affect the battery life, and these data show that respondents who have a laptop with a shorter battery life will be more likely not to bring their laptop onto campus – in fact it is only when the battery life gets over 3 hours that the proportion of respondents who are bringing their laptop onto campus daily exceeds the proportion who bring their laptops onto campus once a month. A tabulation of battery life against the age of the laptop suggests a similar picture – the self-reporting of the battery life suggests that the battery life of the laptop tends to tail off as the battery life gets older – this could be for a number of reasons: relative improvement in the quality of batteries; general wear and tear of the laptop’s battery; or the expense of the initial investment in the laptop. What is important to note, however, is that an older laptop, and its battery life, will probably define how often it is brought onto campus.

From a policy point of view, therefore, any project that means that a student has to use their own device has to reflect that those students in later years of study, whose laptops tend to be older, are tending to have a device that is nearing the end of the device’s lifespan, with system performance that matches this fact. If a project suggests that a student’s own device is used for a sustained period needs to have a power-point on hand for the student to charge their device: there is a certain inevitability in the fact that respondents who are having to charge their laptops continually aren’t bringing them onto campus – there are only a finite amount of power-points on campus, and bringing peripherals such as power-packs and chargers onto campus will affect the relative load that the respondent is carrying.

The other defining feature that appears to affect the frequency that respondents are bringing laptops onto campus appears to be the operating system: respondents who use Mac laptops are far more likely to be bringing their laptop onto campus on a daily basis than those who use windows laptops. This could of course be an accidental correlation related to the relatively small sample of Mac users represented within the survey results, however, these data do present a picture whereby the proportions are far higher (over 60% compared 1/3rd) – it is doubtful that this is coincidental. I wish to posit, therefore, that Mac products are being brought onto campus with more regularity due to two things: battery life and brand loyalty.