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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8128400" data-attributes="member: 42582">In relation to the claim that higher education students are better at handling material that is formulaic but weaker at handling material or tasks that invite judgement or creativity: I can only speak to my own experience here, which is teaching Australian students with exposure primarily to the humanities or social sciences. Over my two decades or so of experience there is only one generalisable change I would say I have observed: the quality of syntax in submitted work has declined, and I am fairly confident that this is due to composing work via word processing rather than via handwriting. There is no occasion where a contemporary student actually writes out his/her text from beginning to end of the sentence or the paragraph, and hence has to fully engage with its syntax.As far as actual ideas are concerned, it remains the case that most submitted work is fairly similar and hews close to a generic template response, but work either at the bottom (fail or mere pass) end or the top (H1) end stands out for its distinctive way of framing and addressing the topic and arguments.Moving from student work to academic work, in my fields - law and philosophy - I wouldn't say that I have seen any decline in creativity that I've noticed. Maybe if someone did a systematic study the result might be different? But there is nothing of this sort - in my view, at least - discernible to mere intuition and experience. There are tendencies to intellectual fashion, but I don't think that's a new thing.The equivalent of social media in the context of academic writing is probably ssrn, Academia, etc: but I don't see that these have produced any particular trend towards homogenisation in the work that I get asked to referee, in the work I see presented at conference or workshops, etc. I've been invited to participate in events, contribute pieces to collections, etc, because of what is distinctive in my position or approach.I can't comment from personal, insider experience about less intellectual/knowledge-oriented and more creative spheres. As an outsider it seems to me that a fair bit of low-quality fiction with a high degree of thematic overlap gets published these days. But that was true in those days too!And I think it is the case that mass audio-visual media generates pressure towards "perfection" in performance, making it harder for merely talented amateurs to receive appreciation. Performances that would have received praise 100 years ago might now easily be judged as "sloppy". But I would at least like some concrete examples or comparisons to be provided to support the claim that this is leading not just to better technical skill but to a reduction in creativity or imagination in interpretation, composition etc.</blockquote>

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