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Podcasting your lectures – will your students stay or will they go?
posted Thursday, 18 January 2007
An anxiety for many lecturers when they first discuss the idea of podcasting their lectures is that their students will stop attending. At the moment there seems to be little research in this area, however, what research there is suggests that attendance is not adversely affected by recording and publishing (podcasting) lectures (Lum (2006), Cane (2006)).
This article addresses the topic of student attendance and outlines some of the emerging findings from a course in Engineering Management at the University of Bristol which makes a recording of the lecture available at the end of the each session.
When surveyed, the broad student response implied that the large majority would continue to attend lectures due to a number of reasons, and they viewed the recorded material as having a different role in their learning experience.
My health warning: the following discussion is based on a relatively small response rate, 56 students on a course of over 300. These results are not statistically significant, and they are a self selecting group. Therefore, they should be viewed as offering an insight into the process and there needs to be a wider range of evaluation techniques adopted to tease out the student views. Also, this is a very small subset of a wider evaluation which will be published elsewhere. That said, read on.
The context is that the lecture material (audio and visuals) was captured using Camtasia, and made available on the supporting Blackboard courses as a flash movie, and as a downloadable version for the iPod. In this academic year they were not made available as a podcast as the podcasting software in Blackboard was not available at the start of the academic year.
In terms of the findings, it is evident that a large number of the students who responded (26 students or 46%) had watched at least one of the lecture recordings. Further probing identified that 15 students (27%) had “continued to watch the recordings throughout the taught part of the course”.
With respect to the key question of attendance they were asked, “knowing that all the lecture recordings would be available on Blackboard, did this deter them from attending the lecture?” The responses showed that 13 students (23%) said that it would deter them from attending, while 43 (77%) said that it would not. The next question teased out why they had made that decision. From the responses (33 free text answers), some patterns appeared. In terms of why students would still wish to attend, the following themes emerged;
1. The learning preferences of the student
Many responses included the statement that students felt they learn more from being in the same physical proximity to the person presenting the material compared to watching it onscreen. Some of the statements include;
“because I feel that I learn a lot better with face to face contact”
“I take a lot more in from listening to a real person that watching or listening to a recording”
“I know this (the video) isn’t quite as good as the real lecture”
2. The degree of interaction
Many responses picked a key difference between the live and recorded material being the lecture afforded the opportunity to ask questions and receive immediate feedback compared to the video material. For instance,
“more likely to pay attention live, opportunities to ask questions”
“ this allows two-way interaction with the lecturer, including the opportunity to ask questions at the end”
“nothing is like being able to ask the lecturer questions while he is explaining a subject, and hearing other people’s questions as they help too”
This implies for this group that the learning experience is richer, and in turn this is a motivator to attend the lecture compared to simply viewing the recording in isolation.
3. Student time management – time pressure
A key theme to emerge in many responses was the perception that it is more time efficient to attend the lecture than to watch the lecture at a time of individuals choosing. It was also evident that many felt they where less likely to access the information if the responsibility was with them, compared to attending the lecture. For instance,
“I would turn up because otherwise I don’t think I would do as much work, other things would end up distracting”
“it is difficult to fully take in the lecture topics while in a potentially distracting environment at home”
“sitting in my bedroom listening to lectures requires much more self motivation than sitting in a lecture theatre – I am more likely to get distracted and go and make a cup of tea!”
Interestingly, the reasons for the group that didn’t think they would attend focussed very much on their individual learning preferences with the flexibility that the recorded lecture offered them interms of accessing the material anytime, anywhere. This is encapsulated in the following response,
“if they are readily available online – then its fair to say that there’s no point in going to the lecture cos you get the whole thing in the comfort of your own home and don’t have to sit through 2 hours of it in one go”
Overall, the findings indicate the students watched the recorded lecture material but didn’t think that because the material was available online then they not attend the lectures. A follow up set of questions focussed on the idea that if they watched the recordings, did they think it enhanced their learning experience, and if so, why? In terms of the perceived impact on their learning, they were asked, to what extent you would agree with the following statement, “being able to access recordings of my lectures has really helped my learning”. The responses indicated that 51% either strongly agreed or agreed, and only 19% either disagreed of strongly disagreed. In teasing out the rationale for their answers a theme was quickly evident, the bulk of the respondents viewed the recordings as being a safety net and it added value as a revision aid. I’ll be checking the course log to see if this works out in practice just before the course exam.
So what do these findings tell us?
I think it does tackle head on a common misconception that recording the lecture will result in a large fall in student attendance. This is because it highlights that the students view the two approaches as having different roles within their learning experience. The lecture provides the opportunity for interaction and instantaneous feedback, an appropriate atmosphere for learning and for increasingly strategic students a more efficient use of their time. Whilst the recording is viewed as safety net, and offers significant potential as a revision aid.
It also suggests that if we are to think about replacing the large scale, didactic lecture with an electronic version then to maintain the effectiveness we’ll need to design in that sense of community, and the perceived opportunity for interaction with instantaneous feedback.
Finally, given that the technical and support issues involved in recording a lecture are relatively few, and these are easily overcome then why don’t we roll out more lecture recording? Well, I think these findings imply that the diverse student body sees benefits, so before we roll this out the emphasis needs to turn to the academic staff. For instance, how comfortable are they with the idea their lectures are being recorded and made publicly available? What impact does this have on the both the material in the lecture and the way that they lecture? These questions are in the process of being answered.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank Dr Mohammed Wanous, and the students on his course for the opportunity to undertake this work. Of course all the views expressed in this article are mine, not Mohammed’s
References
Lane, C (2006), UW Podcasting: Evaluation of Year One - http://catalyst.washington.edu/research_development/papers/2006/podcasting_year1.pdf - accessed January 2007
Lum, L (2006), The Power of Podcasting - http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_5583.shtml - accessed January 2007
This article addresses the topic of student attendance and outlines some of the emerging findings from a course in Engineering Management at the University of Bristol which makes a recording of the lecture available at the end of the each session.
When surveyed, the broad student response implied that the large majority would continue to attend lectures due to a number of reasons, and they viewed the recorded material as having a different role in their learning experience.
My health warning: the following discussion is based on a relatively small response rate, 56 students on a course of over 300. These results are not statistically significant, and they are a self selecting group. Therefore, they should be viewed as offering an insight into the process and there needs to be a wider range of evaluation techniques adopted to tease out the student views. Also, this is a very small subset of a wider evaluation which will be published elsewhere. That said, read on.
The context is that the lecture material (audio and visuals) was captured using Camtasia, and made available on the supporting Blackboard courses as a flash movie, and as a downloadable version for the iPod. In this academic year they were not made available as a podcast as the podcasting software in Blackboard was not available at the start of the academic year.
In terms of the findings, it is evident that a large number of the students who responded (26 students or 46%) had watched at least one of the lecture recordings. Further probing identified that 15 students (27%) had “continued to watch the recordings throughout the taught part of the course”.
With respect to the key question of attendance they were asked, “knowing that all the lecture recordings would be available on Blackboard, did this deter them from attending the lecture?” The responses showed that 13 students (23%) said that it would deter them from attending, while 43 (77%) said that it would not. The next question teased out why they had made that decision. From the responses (33 free text answers), some patterns appeared. In terms of why students would still wish to attend, the following themes emerged;
1. The learning preferences of the student
Many responses included the statement that students felt they learn more from being in the same physical proximity to the person presenting the material compared to watching it onscreen. Some of the statements include;
“because I feel that I learn a lot better with face to face contact”
“I take a lot more in from listening to a real person that watching or listening to a recording”
“I know this (the video) isn’t quite as good as the real lecture”
2. The degree of interaction
Many responses picked a key difference between the live and recorded material being the lecture afforded the opportunity to ask questions and receive immediate feedback compared to the video material. For instance,
“more likely to pay attention live, opportunities to ask questions”
“ this allows two-way interaction with the lecturer, including the opportunity to ask questions at the end”
“nothing is like being able to ask the lecturer questions while he is explaining a subject, and hearing other people’s questions as they help too”
This implies for this group that the learning experience is richer, and in turn this is a motivator to attend the lecture compared to simply viewing the recording in isolation.
3. Student time management – time pressure
A key theme to emerge in many responses was the perception that it is more time efficient to attend the lecture than to watch the lecture at a time of individuals choosing. It was also evident that many felt they where less likely to access the information if the responsibility was with them, compared to attending the lecture. For instance,
“I would turn up because otherwise I don’t think I would do as much work, other things would end up distracting”
“it is difficult to fully take in the lecture topics while in a potentially distracting environment at home”
“sitting in my bedroom listening to lectures requires much more self motivation than sitting in a lecture theatre – I am more likely to get distracted and go and make a cup of tea!”
Interestingly, the reasons for the group that didn’t think they would attend focussed very much on their individual learning preferences with the flexibility that the recorded lecture offered them interms of accessing the material anytime, anywhere. This is encapsulated in the following response,
“if they are readily available online – then its fair to say that there’s no point in going to the lecture cos you get the whole thing in the comfort of your own home and don’t have to sit through 2 hours of it in one go”
Overall, the findings indicate the students watched the recorded lecture material but didn’t think that because the material was available online then they not attend the lectures. A follow up set of questions focussed on the idea that if they watched the recordings, did they think it enhanced their learning experience, and if so, why? In terms of the perceived impact on their learning, they were asked, to what extent you would agree with the following statement, “being able to access recordings of my lectures has really helped my learning”. The responses indicated that 51% either strongly agreed or agreed, and only 19% either disagreed of strongly disagreed. In teasing out the rationale for their answers a theme was quickly evident, the bulk of the respondents viewed the recordings as being a safety net and it added value as a revision aid. I’ll be checking the course log to see if this works out in practice just before the course exam.
So what do these findings tell us?
I think it does tackle head on a common misconception that recording the lecture will result in a large fall in student attendance. This is because it highlights that the students view the two approaches as having different roles within their learning experience. The lecture provides the opportunity for interaction and instantaneous feedback, an appropriate atmosphere for learning and for increasingly strategic students a more efficient use of their time. Whilst the recording is viewed as safety net, and offers significant potential as a revision aid.
It also suggests that if we are to think about replacing the large scale, didactic lecture with an electronic version then to maintain the effectiveness we’ll need to design in that sense of community, and the perceived opportunity for interaction with instantaneous feedback.
Finally, given that the technical and support issues involved in recording a lecture are relatively few, and these are easily overcome then why don’t we roll out more lecture recording? Well, I think these findings imply that the diverse student body sees benefits, so before we roll this out the emphasis needs to turn to the academic staff. For instance, how comfortable are they with the idea their lectures are being recorded and made publicly available? What impact does this have on the both the material in the lecture and the way that they lecture? These questions are in the process of being answered.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank Dr Mohammed Wanous, and the students on his course for the opportunity to undertake this work. Of course all the views expressed in this article are mine, not Mohammed’s
References
Lane, C (2006), UW Podcasting: Evaluation of Year One - http://catalyst.washington.edu/research_development/papers/2006/podcasting_year1.pdf - accessed January 2007
Lum, L (2006), The Power of Podcasting - http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_5583.shtml - accessed January 2007
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