Source: http://www.thestar.com/article/614219

University professors feel their first-year students are less mature, rely too much on Wikipedia and "expect success without the requisite effort," says a province-wide survey to be released today.

And guess what? In this case, many students agree with their profs.

"I think it's a fair assessment," said first-year Ryerson journalism student Annie Webber. "I'm addicted to Wikipedia."

Lina Kim, a fourth-year University of Toronto sociology student who works in the U of T's Robarts Library, agrees.

"Many students can't even ask for help. Partly, it's generational, the attitude and sense of entitlement they have," Kim said.

More than 55 per cent of Ontario's faculty and librarians surveyed believe students are less prepared for university than even three years ago. In fact, many post-secondary institutions have had to create catch-up courses to help those who are struggling.

"It wasn't a shock for me – I'm aware of what's happening out there," said Brian Brown, a University of Windsor visual arts professor. He also heads the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, which oversaw the online survey of about 2,000 professors and university librarians out of the province's 15,000.

"What the questionnaire reveals is a serious challenge that we are facing in the system. We are teaching students from what is basically an underresourced secondary school system."

James Côté, a sociology professor at the University of Western Ontario, says the survey confirms a lot of recent research, and that the decline in student preparedness began years ago but has more recently accelerated.

"It's a wider societal issue, where leisure is very much valued and work habits are not necessarily reinforced in the way that they were in the past. The work ethic is not what it used to be ... no pain, no gain doesn't seem to be prevalent any more."

Côté co-authored a book, Ivory Tower Blues: A University System in Crisis, that in part chronicled the issues professors have with today's students and he writes a blog where he hears from professors all the time.

With the current focus on stemming high-school dropouts, discipline and punctuality are not longer reinforced, and students come to university expecting to continue that, he added.

Even though students are one year younger heading to university, a change brought in by the previous Conservative government, "We've just caught up with the rest of the world," although in other countries they expect students to be more mature.

Côté said universities are caught: they don't want to fail anyone as they are funded on a per-student basis.

The question on student preparedness was part of a larger survey of professors completed in February and March that asked about all aspects of campus life. More than 60 per cent of professors said they were teaching larger classes than three years ago, and that not only has hiring slowed down, but so has the creation of full-time tenured positions – which was an issue in the recent strike by teaching assistants and contract faculty at York University.

As for first-year students, Brown said professors don't think they have the needed critical thinking or math skills, and they lack the ability to learn independently.

"We are basically trying to deliver a quality education on our campuses for a cohort of students who need extra attention to succeed."

He applauded the provincial government for recent funding announcements, including $780 million for infrastructure and an immediate $150 million for universities and colleges.

Colleges, too, report troubles with unprepared students, especially in math, and have each developed their own way to deal with it.

According to the College Mathematics Project, which tracks high school students' math achievement through to first year, schools may offer night classes, tutoring or add hours to existing math classes.

"Traditionally, the first semester success rates are quite low – I'm from the science and technology side of things, and clearly we knew that from the results we saw, particularly with younger students, that they are struggling with math," said Laurel Schollen, dean of applied science and engineering technology at Seneca, who is involved with the project.

Danish Zakir, a third-year U of T student in actuarial science and economics, said: "I think there should be an initiation program in high school to prepare them for university."

But Nadya Denissova, a fourth-year computer science and statistics student at U of T, disagrees with the survey, saying she knew students in the double cohort, and they were given extra work to make up for missing OAC.

"I think the problem is with the universities," Denissova said. "They have to teach better rather than blame high schools."

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