Higher Education Voices: College Students’ Attitudes Toward Data Privacy

Higher Education Voices: College Students’ Attitudes Toward Data Privacy

  1. The authors thank the numerous people who contributed to this report, particularly Larissa Kehne, Preeti Jain, Dr. Carrie N. Klein, and Ashleigh Imus.
  2. Aaron Smith and Monica Anderson, Social Media Use in 2018, Pew Research Center, (March 1, 2018), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/.
  3. Doug Lederman, Professors’ Slow, Steady Acceptance of Online Learning: A Survey, Inside Higher Ed, (October 30, 2019), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/professors-slow-steady-acceptance-online-learning-survey.
  4.  Joseph Galanek and Ben Shulman, Not Sure If They’re Invading My Privacy or Just Really Interested in Me, EDUCAUSE Review, (December 11, 2019), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2019/12/not-sure-if-theyre-invading-my-privacy-or-just-really-interested-in-me.
  5. See, for example, David Erickson, Millennials Don’t Care About Privacy, e-Stategy Trends, (September 8, 2017), Accessed July 22, 2021, https://trends.e-strategyblog.com/2017/09/08/millennials-dont-care-privacy/28667/; Kari Paul, ‘I don’t care’: young TikTokers unfazed by US furor over data collection, The Guardian, (August 5, 2020), Accessed July 22, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/05/tiktok-gen-z-millennials-data-privacy-trump-china; Sarah Landrum, Millennials, Trust, And Internet Security, Forbes, (June 28, 2017), Accessed July 22, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahlandrum/2017/06/28/millennials-trust-and-internet-security/?sh=5187c95e5555; John H. Fleming and Amy Adkins, Data Security: Not a Big Concern for Millennials, Gallup, (June 9, 2016, Accessed July 22, 2021, https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/192401/data-security-not-big-concern-millennials.aspx; Matthew Hennessey, Why millennials will learn nothing from Facebook’s privacy crisis, New York Post, (April 7, 2018), Accessed July 22, 2021, https://nypost.com/2018/04/07/why-millennials-will-learn-nothing-from-facebooks-privacy-crisis/; Robert Williams, Study: Gen Z opts for personalized, interactive content over privacy, Marketing Dive, (June 4, 2019), Accessed July 22, 2021,https://www.marketingdive.com/news/study-gen-z-opts-for-personalized-interactive-content-over-privacy/556101/; Hunter Schwarz, Millennials are a little confused when it comes to privacy, The Washington Post, (May 13, 2015), Accessed July 22, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/05/13/millenials-dont-trust-government-to-respect-their-privacy-but-they-do-trust-businesses-what/.
  6. Hadley Malcom, Millennials don’t worry about online privacy, USA Today, (April 21, 2013), Accessed July 22, 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/04/21/millennials-personal-info-online/2087989/.
  7.  Kari Paul, ‘I don’t care’: young TikTokers unfazed by US furor over data collection, The Guardian, (August 5, 2020), Accessed July 22, 2021,  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/05/tiktok-gen-z-millennials-data-privacy-trump-china.
  8. D. Christopher Brooks, ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, EDUCAUSE, (2016), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://er.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2016/10/ers1605.pdf?la=en, 22.
  9. John Fleming, Millennials Most Trusting on Safety of Personal Information, Gallup, (May 11, 2015), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://news.gallup.com/poll/183074/millennials-trusting-safety-personal-information.aspx.
  10. John H. Fleming and Amy Adkins, Data Security: Not a Big Concern for Millennials, Gallup, (June 9, 2016), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/192401/data-security-not-big-concern-millennials.aspx.
  11. Jeffrey M. Jones, Facebook Users’ Privacy Concerns Up Since 2011, Gallup, (April 11, 2018), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://news.gallup.com/poll/232319/facebook-users-privacy-concerns-2011.aspx.
  12. Jill Dunlap, Iris Palmer, and Alexa Wesley, Keeping Student Trust: Student Perceptions of Data Use Within Higher Education, New America, (March 10, 2021), Accessed April 12, 2021, https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/keeping-student-trust/.
  13. Susan Athey, Christian Catalini, and Catherine Tucker, The Digital Privacy Paradox: Small Money, Small Costs, Small Talk, NBER Working Paper Series (June 2017), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.nber.org/papers/w23488.pdf, 4.
  14. Michael Dowd, Contextualized Concerns: The Online Privacy Attitudes of Young Adults, International Federation for Information Processing, (2011), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-642-20769-3_7.pdf, 79–80.
  15. Ibid, 80.
  16. Katey Psencik, How much do college students care about online privacy?, USA Today, (May 29, 2013), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/29/college-students-online-privacy-debate/2369941/.
  17.  Andrew Perrin, Americans are changing their relationship with Facebook, Pew Research Center, (September 5, 2018), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/05/americans-are-changing-their-relationship-with-facebook/.
  18. Nis Bornoe and Louise Barkhuus, Privacy Management in a Connected World: Students’ Perception of Facebook Privacy Settings, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, (2011), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.bornoe.org/papers/CSCW2011-Collaborative-Privacy-Workshop-bornoe.pdf.
  19. Katherina Glac, Dawn R. Elm, and Kirsten Martin, Areas of Privacy in Facebook: Expectations and Value, Business & Professional Ethics Journal (2014), 33 (2/3): 147–176, Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44074811.
  20. Nis Bornoe and Louise Barkhuus, Privacy Management in a Connected World: Students’ Perception of Facebook Privacy Settings, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, (2011), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.bornoe.org/papers/CSCW2011-Collaborative-Privacy-Workshop-bornoe.pdf.
  21. Julie Beck, People Are Changing the Way They Use Social Media, The Atlantic, (June 7, 2018), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/did-cambridge-analytica-actually-change-facebook-users-behavior/562154/.
  22. Kaplan, Kaplan Survey: Percentage of College Admissions Officers Who Visit Applicants’ Social Media Pages on the Rise Again, Kaplan, (January 13, 2020), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.kaptest.com/blog/press/2020/01/13/kaplan-survey-percentage-of-college-admissions-officers-who-visit-applicants-social-media-pages-on-the-rise-again/.
  23. Kaplan, Kaplan Test Prep Survey: Social Media Checks By College Admissions Officers Decline Due to Savvier Applicants and Shifting Attitudes, Kaplan, (November 27, 2018), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.kaptest.com/blog/press/2018/11/27/kaplan-test-prep-survey-social-media-checks-by-college-admissions-officers-decline-due-to-savvier-applicants-and-shifting-attitudes-2/.
  24.  Ibid.
  25. Alice Marwick, Claire Fontaine, and danah boyd, “Nobody Sees It, Nobody Gets Mad”: Social Media, Privacy, and Personal Responsibility Among Low-SES Youth, Social Media + Society, (May 2017), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117710455.
  26. Knowledge@Wharton, Teens Are Waging a Privacy War on the Internet — Why Marketers Should Listen, Knowledge @ Wharton, (August 5, 2014), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/teens-privacy-online/.
  27. Nis Bornoe and Louise Barkhuus, Privacy Management in a Connected World: Students’ Perception of Facebook Privacy Settings, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, (2011), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.bornoe.org/papers/CSCW2011-Collaborative-Privacy-Workshop-bornoe.pdf.
  28. Simon Parkin, Gamergate: A Scandal Erupts in the Video-Game Community, The New Yorker, (October 17, 2014), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/gamergate-scandal-erupts-video-game-community.
  29. Alice Marwick, Claire Fontaine, and danah boyd, “Nobody Sees It, Nobody Gets Mad”: Social Media, Privacy, and Personal Responsibility Among Low-SES Youth, Social Media + Society, (May 2017), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117710455.
  30.  Eden Dahlstrom, D. Christopher Brooks, Susan Grajek, and Jamie Reeves, ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2015, EDUCAUSE, (2015), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2015/8/ers1510ss.pdf?la=en&hash=5B932D434EF273031FC601C538D52D7524017682.
  31. Kyle M.L. Jones, Andrew Asher, Abigail Goben, Michael R. Perry, Dorothea Salo, Kristin A. Briney, and M. Brooke Robertshaw, “We’re being tracked at all times”: Student perspectives of their privacy in relation to learning analytics in higher education, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, (April 2020), Accessed April 6, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24358, 15.
  32. Ibid.
  33. Jill Dunlap, Iris Palmer, and Alexa Wesley, Keeping Student Trust: Student Perceptions of Data Use Within Higher Education, New America, (March 10, 2021), Accessed April 12, 2021, https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/keeping-student-trust/.
  34. Ibid.
  35. Ibid.
  36. Ibid.
  37. Ibid.
  38. Dirk Ifenthaler and Clara Schumacher, Student perceptions of privacy principles for learning analytics, Educational Technology Research and Development (2016), 64: 923–938, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-016-9477-y.
  39. Kayla Picotte, Personal Information in Public Domain: Perceptions of Risk Among College Students on Facebook and the Outside World, Master’s Thesis, University of North Carolina Wilmington, (2012), Accessed April 5, 2020, http://dl.uncw.edu/Etd/2012-1/picottek/kaylapicotte.pdf, 26.
  40. Fang Yang and Shudong Wang, Students’ Perception Toward Personal Information and Privacy Disclosure in E-Learning, The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, (January 2014), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/027e/e162b8526aef855b0f7e0132d61140fcb3a7.pdf.
  41. Erica Darragh, Here’s Why I’m Campaigning Against Facial Recognition in Schools, VICE, (March 11, 2020), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bgpj/heres-why-im-campaigning-against-facial-recognition-in-schools.
  42. Kari Paul, ‘Ban this technology’: students protest US universities’ use of facial recognition, The Guardian, (March 2, 2020), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/facial-recognition-us-colleges-ucla-ban.
  43. John H. Fleming and Amy Adkins, Data Security: Not a Big Concern for Millennials, Gallup, (June 6, 2016), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/192401/data-security-not-big-concern-millennials.aspx.
  44. 2018 Digital Future Project, Surveying the Digital Future: The 16th annual study on the impact of digital technology on Americans, Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg, (2018), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.digitalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/2018-Digital-Future-Report.pdf, 89.
  45. The Generation Lab, Youth Dems and GOP love tech and want it to stop, The Generation Lab, (January 28, 2021), Accessed February 3, 2021, https://www.generationlab.org/post/youth-dems-and-gop-love-tech-and-want-it-to-stop.
  46. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Gallup, Techlash? America’s Growing Concern With Major Technology Companies, Knight Foundation and Gallup, (2020), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://knightfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Gallup-Knight-Report-Techlash-Americas-Growing-Concern-with-Major-Tech-Companies-Final.pdf, 13.
  47. Ibid, 5.
  48. Ibid, 19.
  49. Brooke Auxier, Lee Rainie, Monica Anderson, Andrew Perrin, Madhu Kumar, and Erica Turner, Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information, Pew Research Center, (November 15, 2019), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy-concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal-information/
  50. Jill Dunlap, Iris Palmer, and Alexa Wesley, Keeping Student Trust: Student Perceptions of Data Use Within Higher Education, New America, (March 10, 2021), Accessed April 12, 2021, https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/keeping-student-trust/.
  51. Kyle M.L. Jones et al., “We’re being tracked at all times”: Student perspectives of their privacy in relation to learning analytics in higher education, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, (April 2020), Accessed April 6, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24358, 17.
  52. Lynne D. Roberts, Joel A. Howell, Kristen Seaman, and David C. Gibson, Student Attitudes toward Learning Analytics in Higher Education: “The Fitbit Version of the Learning World,” Frontiers in Psychology (2016), https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01959
  53. Carrie Klein et al., Student Sensemaking of Learning Analytics Dashboard Interventions in Higher Education, Journal of Educational Technology Systems (2019), 48 (1): 130–154, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0047239519859854.
  54. Joseph Galanek and Ben Shulman, Not Sure If They’re Invading My Privacy or Just Really Interested in Me, EDUCAUSE Review, (December 11, 2019), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2019/12/not-sure-if-theyre-invading-my-privacy-or-just-really-interested-in-me.
  55. Alexander Whitelock-Wainwright, Dragan Gasevic, Ricardo Ejeiro, Yi-Shan Tsai, and Kate Bennet, The Student Expectations of Learning Analytics Questionnaire, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (October 2019), Vol 35, Issue 5, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12366.
  56. Lynne D. Roberts, Joel A. Howell, Kristen Seaman, and David C. Gibson, Student Attitudes toward Learning Analytics in Higher Education: “The Fitbit Version of the Learning World,” Frontiers in Psychology (2016), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01959.
  57. National Center for Education Statistics, Table 332. 10. Bachelor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by field of study: Selected years, 1970-71 through 2016-17, NCES, (August 2018), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d18/tables/dt18_322.10.asp.
  58. Trisha Kulkarni, Making Privacy Public, The Stanford Daily, (January 15, 2020), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/01/14/making-privacy-public/.
  59.  Michael Brown and Carrie Klein, Whose Data? Which Rights? Whose Power? A Policy Discourse Analysis of Student Privacy Policy Documents, The Journal of Higher Education, (June 22, 2020), Accessed November 10, 2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.2020.1770045.
  60. Brooke Auxier et al., Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information, Pew Research Center, (November 15, 2019), Accessed April 5, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy-concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal-information/.
  61. Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Study of Adult Development, History of the Study, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, (2015), Accessed April 30, 2020, https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/grantandglueckstudy.