The expansion of higher education has led to a more diverse student
population, theorized around the concept of the non-traditional student. This
term is used to describe students whose socio-demographic characteristics,
motivations, study engagement and experiences differ from those of traditional
higher education participants. The non-traditional student population is a
highly heterogeneous group in which the individual student presents with
specific motivations, needs, and constraints, but a common requirement is for
more flexible teaching and learning methods to meet their complex educational
needs. We here examine this demand for flexibility through the preferences
students express for online teaching methods, and we investigate whether
differences between traditional and non-traditional students are mainly due
to inequalities, the role of parental education in particular, or on the contrary,
whether they are related to certain characteristics such as age, employment
and residential status. The data used in this investigation was collected during
the period characterized by the containment measures linked to the Covid-19
pandemic from students enrolled at the University of Bologna. The results of
the investigation presented below confirm that non-traditional students
exhibit a clear preference for online as opposed to face-to-face learning
and that parental education is particularly relevant for those under 25
