Generations about each other – preliminary results of a survey among part-time students

Abstract

Awareness of how each generation views the other is essential to encourage intergenerational learning in higher education and to properly facilitate multigenerational student groups, and to foster collaboration between the four generations - Baby Boomer, X, Y and Z -- currently active in the workplace. We investigated how part-time students of different age cohorts at the Juhász Gyula Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Szeged perceive their own age group and other generations based on their experiences in multigenerational groups, and to see if their willingness to cooperate with the others are influenced by their age. Our aim was to find out whether the generational characteristics emerging in theoretical models and previous research are confirmed by the students' perceptions, and whether age-related differences in the perceptions can be discovered. Our survey was conducted using a voluntary, anonymous, online questionnaire in January 2023. The 150 responses, representing an almost equal proportion of respondents aged under and over 40, show that the opinions of students provide little support for the claims made in generational theories, especially for Generation X. At the same time, however, there are some virtues that are more specific to younger and older people that could be built upon in the learning-teaching process. This is all the more the case as the students' choice of partners in teamwork does not include similar age, so there is no barrier to intergenerational cooperation and learning.