Technology is shaping learning in higher education – McKinsey

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift to remote learning overnight for most higher-education students, starting in the spring of 2020. To complement video lectures and engage students in the virtual classroom, educators adopted technologies that enabled more interactivity and hybrid models of online and in-person activities. These tools changed learning, teaching, and assessment in ways that may persist after the pandemic. Investors have taken note. Edtech start-ups raised record amounts of venture capital in 2020 and 2021, and market valuations for bigger players soared.

A study conducted by McKinsey in 2021 found that to engage most effectively with students, higher-education institutions can focus on eight dimensionsof the learning experience. In this article, we describe the findings of a study of the learning technologies that can enable aspects of several of those eight dimensions (see sidebar Eight dimensions of the online learning experience).

In November 2021, McKinsey surveyed 600 faculty members and 800 students from public and private nonprofit colleges and universities in the United States, including minority-serving institutions, about the use and impact of eight different classroom learning technologies (Exhibit 1). (For more on the learning technologies analyzed in this research, see sidebar Descriptions of the eight learning technologies.) To supplement the survey, we interviewed industry experts and higher-education professionals who make decisions about classroom technology use. We discovered which learning tools and approaches have seen the highest uptake, how students and educators view them, the barriers to higher adoption, how institutions have successfully adopted innovative technologies, and the notable impacts on learning (for details about our methodology, see sidebar About the research).

Exhibit 1

Survey respondents reported a 19 percent average increase in overall use of these learning technologies since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Technologies that enable connectivity and community building, such as social mediainspired discussion platforms and virtual study groups, saw the biggest uptick in use49 percentfollowed by group work tools, which grew by 29 percent (Exhibit 2). These technologies likely fill the void left by the lack of in-person experiences more effectively than individual-focused learning tools such as augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR). Classroom interaction technologies such as real-time chatting, polling, and breakout room discussions were the most widely used tools before the pandemic and remain so; 67 percent of survey respondents said they currently use these tools in the classroom.

Exhibit 2

The shift to more interactive and diverse learning models will likely continue. One industry expert told us, The pandemic pushed the need for a new learning experience online. It recentered institutions to think about how theyll teach moving forward and has brought synchronous and hybrid learning into focus. Consequently, many US colleges and universities are actively investing to scale up their online and hybrid program offerings.

Some technologies lag behind in adoption. Tools enabling student progress monitoring, AR/VR, machine learningpowered teaching assistants (TAs), AI adaptive course delivery, and classroom exercises are currently used by less than half of survey respondents. Anecdotal evidence suggests that technologies such as AR/VR require a substantial investment in equipment and may be difficult to use at scale in classes with high enrollment. Our survey also revealed utilization disparities based on size. Small public institutions use machine learningpowered TAs, AR/VR, and technologies for monitoring student progress at double or more the rates of medium and large public institutions, perhaps because smaller, specialized schools can make more targeted and cost-effective investments. We also found that medium and large public institutions made greater use of connectivity and community-building tools than small public institutions (57 to 59 percent compared with 45 percent, respectively). Although the uptake of AI-powered tools was slower, higher-education experts we interviewed predict their use will increase; they allow faculty to tailor courses to each students progress, reduce their workload, and improve student engagement at scale (see sidebar Differences in adoption by type of institution observed in the research).

While many colleges and universities are interested in using more technologies to support student learning, the top three barriers indicated are lack of awareness, inadequate deployment capabilities, and cost (Exhibit 3).

Exhibit 3

More than 60 percent of students said that all the classroom learning technologies theyve used since COVID-19 began had improved their learning and grades (Exhibit 4). However, two technologies earned higher marks than the rest for boosting academic performance: 80 percent of students cited classroom exercises, and 71 percent cited machine learningpowered teaching assistants.

Exhibit 4

Although AR/VR is not yet widely used, 37 percent of students said they are most excited about its potential in the classroom. While 88 percent of students believe AR/VR will make learning more entertaining, just 5 percent said they think it will improve their ability to learn or master content (Exhibit 5). Industry experts confirmed that while there is significant enthusiasm for AR/VR, its ability to improve learning outcomes is uncertain. Some data look promising. For example, in a recent pilot study, students who used a VR tool to complete coursework for an introductory biology class improved their subject mastery by an average of two letter grades.

Exhibit 5

Faculty gave learning tools even higher marks than students did, for ease of use, engagement, access to course resources, and instructor connectivity. They also expressed greater excitement than students did for the future use of technologies. For example, while more than 30 percent of students expressed excitement for AR/VR and classroom interactions, more than 60 percent of faculty were excited about those, as well as machine learningpowered teaching assistants and AI adaptive technology.

Eighty-one percent or more of faculty said they feel the eight learning technology tools are a good investment of time and effort relative to the value they provide (Exhibit 6). Expert interviews suggest that employing learning technologies can be a strain on faculty members, but those we surveyed said this strain is worthwhile.

Exhibit 6

While faculty surveyed were enthusiastic about new technologies, experts we interviewed stressed some underlying challenges. For example, digital-literacy gaps have been more pronounced since the pandemic because it forced the near-universal adoption of some technology solutions, deepening a divide that was unnoticed when adoption was sporadic. More tech-savvy instructors are comfortable with interaction-engagement-focused solutions, while staff who are less familiar with these tools prefer content display and delivery-focused technologies.

According to experts we interviewed, learning new tools and features can bring on general fatigue. An associate vice president of e-learning at one university told us that faculty there found designing and executing a pilot study of VR for a computer science class difficult. Its a completely new way of instruction. . . . I imagine that the faculty using it now will not use it again in the spring. Technical support and training help. A chief academic officer of e-learning who oversaw the introduction of virtual simulations for nursing and radiography students said that faculty holdouts were permitted to opt out but not to delay the program. We structured it in a were doing this together way. People who didnt want to do it left, but we got a lot of support from vendors and training, which made it easy to implement simulations.

Despite the growing pains of digitizing the classroom learning experience, faculty and students believe there is a lot more they can gain. Faculty members are optimistic about the benefits, and students expect learning to stay entertaining and efficient. While adoption levels saw double-digit growth during the pandemic, many classrooms have yet to experience all the technologies. For institutions considering the investment, or those that have already started, there are several takeaways to keep in mind.

In an earlier article, we looked at the broader changes in higher education that have been prompted by the pandemic. But perhaps none has advanced as quickly as the adoption of digital learning tools. Faculty and students see substantial benefits, and adoption rates are a long way from saturation, so we can expect uptake to continue. Institutions that want to know how they stand in learning tech adoption can measure their rates and benchmark them against the averages in this article and use those comparisons to help them decide where they want to catch up or get ahead.

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Technology is shaping learning in higher education - McKinsey