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Student retention is an issue in many countries especially in the field of information technology (IT) studies. One explanation for this might be the challenge of integrating academic and professional education. IT students in universities tend to be interested in more professional skills-oriented education. Thus, it seems that the only way to enhance their retention is to provide them with good practice opportunities in their workplace in order to build stronger connections with IT companies, the IT industry and people who integrate them in the professional community. This chapter focuses on IT students undertaking higher education studies in Estonia. The chapter discusses the causes of student attrition and strategies for improving retention. This may give some insight into how IT studies could be designed in higher education to improve student retention and support students in becoming professional learners. In addition, we discuss the COVID-19 related challenges of retention, attrition, and completion in IT studies.

Inquiry-based learning is an active learning method which has found to be beneficial for developing students’ inquiry skills and enhancing academic achievement, engagement, motivation. Inquiry-based learning is widely used in science and math classes in general education schools, but despite the benefits of using inquiry-based learning, this approach is less used in higher education institutions. Still, some good examples can be found, but in higher education level the concept of inquiry-based learning is used in a broader sense and in many different forms (e.g., progressive inquiry). The focus is mostly on formulating questions and answering them through investigation of different materials and theories. This chapter gives an overview of some examples on how inquiry-based learning has been implemented in higher education institutions on three levels: systematically in curricula, separate courses of inquiry-based learning, and inquiry-based learning as part of a course. Additionally, the benefits of using inquiry-based learning in higher education are pointed out and the challenges of implementing inquiry-based learning are discussed on organization level, teacher level and student level.

Despite the high competition for places to study curricula related to information technology (IT) at the higher education level in Estonia, a large number of IT students drop out. Therefore, it is important to explore what influences students to start studying IT and what influences them to persist with their degree program. In this study, data were collected from 301 IT students in Estonia. The students completed a questionnaire at the beginning of their studies and after their first semester. Five factors influencing students' motivation were identified from analysis of these questionnaires. Three of these factors were the same at the beginning of and during studies: previous personal contact with IT, the reputation of the IT field, and development (including self-development and IT field development). A fourth factor related to a desire to continue previous IT studies was found to influence students' motivation only when entering university. A fifth, i.e., learning environment, factor was found to influence motivation only during studies. The outcomes of this study are important for developing new interventions to increase students' interest in IT, their enrollment in IT studies, and their retention.

It is a worldwide problem that although many students are highly interested in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), they do not study it at the higher education level, or if they do then many of them eventually dropout. We studied the reasons student candidates choose to study ICT, in order to gather data that can be used for improving future ICT recruitment and retention. During the admissions procedure to three higher education institutions in Estonia, 1,464 student candidates were asked what reasons influenced them to apply to Informatics or Information Technology. On average, 2.6 candidates competed per available position at the institutions. Qualitative content analysis was used to code the candidates’ open-ended answers and resulted inductively in 14 distinguishable categories. The most frequent reasons for studying ICT were general interest in ICT, previous experience in the field, need for personal professional development, and importance of the field in the future. Interestingly, only a few candidates expressed as a reason the importance of high salaries. Chi-square analysis showed that candidates were accepted with higher probability if they found ICT to be suitable for them, or expressed good opportunities in the labour market. These results are useful for planning effective admission procedures to recruit ICT students.

Reflection has been regarded as a process that leads to deeper learning and a more complex and integrated knowledge structure. Various studies argue that reflection is more effective when given specific support. Technology-enhanced learning environments are recognised as effective facilitators that support students’ learning. This study reviews the reflection support that research papers from the past six years (2007–2012) have introduced in the context of technology-enhanced learning. Three support types are distinguished: technical tools, technical tools with predefined guidance, and technical tools with human interaction guidance. Most of the analysed articles relied on empirical evidence about the effectiveness of reflection support. Some articles gave only argumentative discussion to justify how reflection should be supported. It was showed that all these types of support could have a positive effect on reflection; however, not all the studies found positive effect.

Reflection is a cognitive process that can help students understand and learn from their learning experiences. This implies thinking back about the course of learning processes in order to enable better behaviour and actions in the future. Reflection is more efficient if it is supported by technological tools. These tools offer the ability to present detailed information about learning processes (e.g., use of time during a specific learning process) and the ability to provide guidance, for example in the form of questions that support reflection. In this paper we present the results of a study carried out with 9th grade students (mean age 15.0 years, n=59) to clarify the role of a Reflection Tool to support students’ reflection. The Reflection Tool in this study is a web-based application that was tailored for a chemistry-based Inquiry Learning Space (ILS) called “What does pH measure?”. The ILS and Reflection Tool were developed as part of the EU funded project called Go-Lab (see www.go-labproject. eu). Students were divided into two conditions. In experimental condition the Reflection Tool was used and in the control condition it was not. Furthermore, two types of devices were used to implement the Reflection Tool: tablets and personal computers. Assessment of the Reflection Tool was based on coding the response to open-ended questions that support reflection. Two aspects were assessed in students’ reflections: content (technical, situational and sensitising) and reflection level (description, justification, critique, dialogue and transfer). A qualitative analysis and a non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test were used to detect to what extent the Reflection Tool helps identify students’ reflection content and levels. Although, there was no statistically significant difference in favour of the Reflection Tool, the results still showed that the Reflection Tool enabled to identify students’ reflection content and levels. In this paper we discuss the possible interpretations of these results.

In this study we aimed to identify the relation between students’ reflection levels and their inquiry learning outcomes (i.e. their formulated conclusions) after conducting a complete inquiry cycle in an online Go-Lab Inquiry Learning Space (ILS). We expected that students exhibiting a higher reflection level would be more experienced in formulating higher quality conclusions than students at a lower reflection level. Forty-three students from the 9th grade with an average age of 15 years from two Estonian public schools participated in this study. During the interventions students worked with a chemistry-based ILS called “What does pH measure?” Students were given a pre-defined problem to be solved by following an inquiry cycle. In each phase students had tasks to perform which led to concrete learning outcomes. The students used specific application called Conclusion Tool to state their conclusions and used Reflection Tool to answer two open-ended reflective questions to reflect on their study process. The results suggest that students who reflect at a higher reflection level are more successful in formulating higher quality inquiry outcomes such as hypotheses, observations and conclusions. Therefore it seems that reflection should be part of the learning process in order to support students to achieve higher quality inquiry learning outcomes.

Dropout in ICT studies is a big problem all over the world. This paper gives an overview of research in Estonian ICT student dropout and shows that progress in mathematics and programming courses is important in preventing dropout. Online tools could be used for making these kinds of courses more attractive and effective for students. Possibilities of online tools and two different conceptual remote labs are described in this study in more detail and a combined solution for preventing students' dropout is presented.