To ask if you work in a university have you noticed a recent change in student behaviour?

[0987ghj]

I graduated from university in 2019, and have now returned to study a different course. I've noticed a big difference in student behaviour and I wondered if it's something that university staff have also noticed or if it's just my course.

I'm hoping that this thread doesn't seem like I'm trying to slate current university students/gen Z. A few of the examples I've seen are from mature students, so I don't think it's generational/an age thing.

There's a lot of talking now during lectures, people just talking loudly whilst the lecturer is talking (not even whispering). It's pretty brazen and full on conversations, not just a quick question or comment, and really distracting. People are often late quite a lot, there's routinely a few students who are 40+ minutes late to a 2-hour lecture. I know there are some reasons people may be late such as childcare issues, or traffic or illnesses like IBS that make it hard to leave the house in the mornings so that might just be why, but it's a lot more lateness than I ever saw in my degree before. There would be the occasional person 5-10 minutes late, but not 40+ minutes.

People also start packing up and starting to leave before the lecturer has even finished talking. Our lectures always finish slightly early to allow time to walk to other lectures so there's not really any need for it. I don't remember this happening before, unless it was because the lecture had ran over and even then people would quietly/subtly pack up.

It's not just recent and it's not just students.

So many people in all walks of life, everywhere, are just self-obsessed, have no respect for anyone, ignore rules/laws, etc. We're sleep-walking into a lawless society. No one seems to give a toss about others anymore.

And no, it's not just youngsters - just been virtually barged out of the way this afternoon by a group of geriatric ramblers on our canal footpath, four abreast, no sign of any of them moving into single/double file, literally nowhere for me to go, so just stood there as they barged past!

This retired professor here is really glad she's retired.

If lots of students are late, i think it might be because they have just neen in a previous lecture and cant get from one theatre to another in time.

Ah bless you.

I think if you’re not intelligent enough to remember that you’re not ‘on mute watching an on-screen lecture’, university probably isn’t the place for you.

Yep. Every time I go to our local Waitrose it pisses me off more. People barging in front of you, standing for aaaages in front of produce so you can’t get to it. This week I decided to rise above it and was about to open a door, saw a lady about 10 yrs older than me behind, so I opened the door for her and let her go first. She didn’t even look at me.

Entitled beyond belief. And yes I blame the Milk Snatcher for the MeMeMe-ness of our society.

I get this and my friend agrees. When we first started in the same office 8 years ago we didn’t date use our phone in work time, or scroll the internet mindlessly for ages. Now we are brazenly on Instagram in work and no one bats and eyelid.

I finished uni in 2010 if I was running late to a lecture I'd tend to just skip it :/ Needless to say my double degree was abandoned for a single.

I have just started Uni as part of an apprenticeship and it is exactly as you describe. I'm early 40s and have been amazed by the rudeness and lateness, sometimes over an hour. Bearing in mind we are being paid to be there.

I used to teach in a university and saw a huge different when the tuition fees changed from £3k to ~£9k. When it was £3k students were students. When it went to £9k students changed to customers and there was an increasing air of they had bought their degree, rather than they had paid for the opportunity to study for a degree if you know what I mean? In my final year of teaching one of things that I noticed would be that some students may complain that their grade was too low, I’d happily discuss their grade against the marking criteria and they’d agree on the points, but then say something like “but I spent ages on it” as if the time spent on a piece of work equated to the grade that should be awarded as opposed to the quality of the work submitted. Previously students would be asking for further guidance on how to improve the quality of their work to get a better grade next time.

Could it be partly because so many lectures are online nowadays they feel their presence is enough and they can catch up and listen at leisure? It’s extremely rude and annoying for others who want to listen.
I was surprised when my Dd told me that not many students on her course go in for 9.00am lectures because they are all recorded and online. She prefers to go in as the lectures are quite interactive.
In general I think behaviour has changed after Covid - it has been noticed in new graduate recruits at work, they are not doing as well as recruits from a few years ago.

I graduated in 2006. My course required 100% attendance and engagement in study. It was entirely Problem Based Learning. I gave presentations with horrific hangovers, cramping after having a coil fitted, a day after surgery and with routine illnesses. It doesn't sound like this kind of course is feasible anymore, which is a shame, because we really had to know our stuff in order to graduate!

As a parent of a covid uni student I thank you for your understanding x

The support plan thing is interesting. I had to declare my disability as part of my application (in fact I think I mentioned overcoming physical health issues in my personal statement as well). I really wasn’t sure how my illness would affect me as a student, and was advised to have a support plan just in case. As it happens, I have used parts of it (mostly related to accessibility) but not others (I haven't needed to miss class or extend deadlines). It also allowed me to unlock some additional funding through DSA. So having those things written into a plan can just be a contingency.

My experience couldn't be further from this. The vast majority on my nursing course were not academic atall. They just wanted to do the placements but didn't want to learn A&P or drug calculations.

I'm very academic and found lectures relaxing compared to placements. (But I still put a lot of time into assignments and studying for exams). Not because I didn't want 'to get my hands dirty' but because I found it challenging. And I enjoyed the challenge. At the end of the day there is much more to 'actual nursing' than bed baths and fetching commodes. Those things are important of course. I remember many students complaining about having to write notes! I threw myself into my placements and learned as much as I could from my mentor, from HCAs, from junior doctors and consultants, porters, admin (anyone who had time to show me things and answer my questions!) including using the hospital library and attending the lectures there. As a result I was able to take the lead in breaking bad news to relatives, I was able to run my own bay and really get to know my patients, I was able to do handover. While other students were happy to only do care rounds and washes (and redoing assignments at the nurse's station). I know who was scrabbling around to get their skills signed off at the end of the year and who struggled most as a newly qualified.

As a mature student on an AHP course I have been shocked at the number of students blatantly on their phones during lectures, the poor attendance / late / leaving early, the lack of doing any of the pre / post reading for lectures, the number of students packing up belongings before lectures end, the number of students who do not take part in any discussion despite encouragement, the number of students needing extensions and additional support for assignments, students not taking part at all in course related societies and the general lack of being able to 'think outside the box' / clinical reasoning. I'm not buying the 'because they need to work' stance. I'm on a full time course and work an average of 30 hours a week with 2 kids. All I see is either a dismissive attitude of 'they (NHS) are desperate for staff, as long as I pass I will be employed' or a 'I pay for this, lecturers have a responsibility to make me pass the course'. It's very strange and like OP said not necessarily generational either.

That's a very interesting point. I went to uni in the 1990s and there were no tuition fees and you were even given a grant! I later studied in the USA for a year and the difference was astounding. In the UK, if anyone dared to be a few minutes late for a lecture they were not allowed entry. They would try to sneak in but the lecturer would stop speaking and tell them to leave and they would slope off back out the door. If we dared to whisper among ourselves or even chew gum we were told to get out. In the States, people would turn up late all the time and loudly interrupt the class. One guy turned up late because he was waiting on a pizza which he brought with him. I saw another student in a lecture wearing a dressing gown and he had brought a pillow. I was shocked at the level of disrespect and that was over 20 years ago. Maybe, as you say, if it's seen as a customer/provider transaction then it's a completely different atmosphere.

The not doing the reading drove me insane! Many admitted they did no reading whatsoever for lectures or assignments. Then wondered why they got a low grade. Then they spent the whole lecture asking questions they would already know the answer to if they did the reading and preventing those who did the reading of asking anything in-depth.

Absolutely autumnvibes. I do the pre lecture stuff but it quickly becomes apparent in the lecture that very few other people have, so we all have to do it again. Or even worse is when we have to complete written work to discuss as a group, you are randomly allocated a group and no one else has done it so they all basically sponge off your ideas and feed them back to the lecturer. I have to admit I get annoyed when lecturers don't call them out on stuff such as phone usage, lateness, chatting etc, but I think they daren't if I'm honest.

Does it depend on how hard it is to get into the uni concerned, I wonder? My son's a second year at Cambridge. His course is full on, he works ultra hard or he won't keep up. If you're 5 mins late to a lecture you're not allowed in. The disruption would be too much to the other students. They all worked hard for their place and know it's a privilege to be there and are all academic anyway. They wouldn't jeopardise it by not handing work in or not turning up to labs or supervisions.

The unis whose admission requirements are lower and which need bums on seats to survive - are they going to attract the most hard-working and dedicated students?

I don't tolerate students not doing prep. If I assign pre-class work, I tell those who have not done it to leave. To do anything else is unfair on those who do the work.

There's a thread running right now in HE about someone with a very cavalier attitude which might put paid to your theory curly.

I don't think this is as linked as that. Highly intelligent people at top unis can be amongst the most entitled. I give you Boris Johnson...

It's one of my DS's disappointments tbh. He thought he would be amongst enthusiastic, motivated and dedicated people keen to chat about the subject and found that less so than at school.

Student behaviour has definitely got worse, but even more significant is the increase of poor mental health

You are right - they daren't.

Lecturers get graded feedback from each student at the end of the semester/year, and it is pretty obvious from some of the marks and comments that these are seen as a chance for revenge, but it still goes on the lecturers' records.

I went from getting almost all 4's/5's on each question to getting a slew of 1's/2's with comments such as "She gives us too much reading" (a reading workload which other students have managed - and which many have surpassed if they followed up on the suggested reading (1) "She treats us like children" (well - they were behaving like them)

The students who do well are the ones who put the work in and develop an understanding of the topic - not just a surface parroting of knowledge to scrape through an exam. Students who do the reading, and then read extra when they are able (there are some) still existed, thank heavens, when I left, and were a delight. And it's often the ones who have to work to support themselves who put the most work in on the course materials etc, too - not the ones whose parents are subsidising their living costs.

(1). I gave three lists: "essential". "recommended", "of interest", and expected at least the "essential" to be done. It often wasn't. Putting reading lists together is a time-consuming task. There are a few seminal texts which are repeated, but in some fields, especially anything medically/ scientifically related, knowledge advances so quickly that you have to keep on top of it - and there is also a massive amount of research to go through and evaluate each year,
.

"She treats us like children" (well - they were behaving like them)

I've had that response - after having to tell a group of students regularly to keep quiet so that others could concentrate. They responded (anonymously of course) "We were only talking because you were boring."