Success factor focus and attention in study and in the work context - a call for action at institutes of higher education in a more and more digitalized world

Abstract

Digitization offers new opportunities in the context of students' learning opportunities and strategies, but also risks and challenges. Undisturbed attention is becoming a scarce resource due to multiple opportunities for influence and distraction (e.g., new social media, "attention economy") and is increasingly limiting the learning success of students. "Stolen Focus", low "Attention Span", increased levels of stress and signals of exhaustion and depression in the face of performance and learning demands that tend to remain the same or comparable over the years are signs of an attention crisis and challenge us faculty to actively address this issue in courses. The coming generations (Z etc.) need assistance to regain or improve their self-efficacy in their studies with media literacy, attention, focus and deeper learning. The authors see this situation as a call for action, aiming to improve students' perception (also meta-awareness) and awareness of the impact of the digitalized and accelerated world on their daily routines, learning and working. The ability to work and learn in a focused way is seen and expected by employers as one of the most important competencies of graduates in a recent study. The planned project intends to face this challenge by developing a teaching design with different components, consisting of teaching materials (online/offline), a playbook and a "focus for success diary" and is intended to be applied in a regular Bachelor program, where the authors teach the same course in different locations of the university. Overall, the project should help learners to be better prepared for the demands of the modern world and to be more aware and successful in their learning processes. The social and psychological consequences of digitalization, acceleration and densification will thusbecome an integral part of the training and the solutions developed will offer a contribution in terms of social sustainability in the context of our ESG efforts.