Podcasting and its Relation with Student Performance

Author(s):

Anthony Mark HollandPeter Wells David Bond

Conference:

ECER 2008

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 01B, New Technologies in Higher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2008-09-10

09:15-10:45

Room:

B2 214

Chair:

Jani Petri Ursin

Contribution

This study examines the utilization of lecture podcasts by students and evaluates the relation with students’ subsequent performance in assessments. A group of over 400 students were studied to determine utilization patterns of podcast and then through multivariate analysis to ascertain if podcast usage lead to improved learning outcomes in the form of assessment results. Evidence is provided of the extensive utilization of lecture podcasts, although the pattern of utilization suggests that the label of ‘digital natives’ being applied to these students may be somewhat presumptuous. Furthermore, there is evidence of a positive association between the utilization of lecture podcasts and student performance in assessment. However, this appears to be limited to circumstances where podcasts are being used for revision purposes and to written discussion type questions. The issue of whether podcasts can be regarded as a substitute for lecture attendance for ‘time poor’ students remains unresolved.

Method

In the first instance attention is directed towards documenting the utilisation of lecture podcasts provided to students on an internet based learning management system. Attention then shifts to the determination of the association between the utilisation of the podcasts and student performance. This is undertaken with multivariate tests of the association of student performance in the final exam with utilisation of lecture podcasts, and controls for student aptitude and language ability.

Expected Outcomes

While this is only a preliminary study of student utilisation of podcast lectures, a number of insights are provided. First, students made extensive use of lecture podcasts with almost 85% of students accessing a podcast lecture, and students downloading on average 8 of the 12 lectures podcast. However, there were anomalies in the pattern of utilisation. These include students downloading each lecture an average of 5.14 times, and lecture one being the most commonly download lecture in each week. Perhaps the assumption of “digital natives” is a little presumptuous, and that while students may embrace new technologies if available, not all are equally adept at utilising the technology. Second, there appears to be a positive association between the utilisation of lecture podcasts and performance. However, this result appears to be driven by utilisation as revision only, and performance in questions requiring written responses. In contrast, for assessments which involve computational questions there does not appear to be any benefit from the utilisation of podcast.

References

Dixon, C & Greeson, M (2006) “Recasting the Concept of Podcasting: Part 1” http://news.digitaltrends.cpm/talkback109html) TDG Research, March 23 2006. Accessed 29 September 2007. Growing Esteem: Choices for the University of Melbourne (2005). Melbourne: University of Melbourne. Harriet, A.(2006) “Podcast lectures a hit with conscientious university students” The Age Newspaper August 11, 2006 Holland A M & Pithers, R (2007) “I’m too busy and they are just so boring! Students and lectures” Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference on Improving University Teaching, Jaen, Spain 4-8 July 2007 Jensen, M (2007) “Lecture is Dead: Take 3” The American Biology Teacher 69(3) p. 138. Johnson, E, Jenkins, J & Jewell, M (2005) “Analyzing Components of Reading On Performance Assessments: An Expanded Simple View” Reading Psychology , 26(3) 267-283. Lee, M (2005) “New Tools for online collaboration: Blogs, wikis, RSS and podcasting” Training and Development in Australia October, 17-20. Milbourne, R (2007) “Tax Breaks at the Expense of Students” http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/tax-breaks-at-expense-of-students/2007/10/07/1191695739500.html accessed 9 October 2007. Prensky, M (2001) Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon 9(5), 1-6. NCB University Press. Read, B. (2007) “How to Podcast Campus Lectures” Chronicle of Higher Education 53(21) pp. 32-35. Read, B.(2005) “Lectures on the Go” Chronicle of Higher Education 52(10) pp. 39-42. Simmonson, O (2005) Overview of AEI Activities, including recent evaluation of the Australian ESOS Act. Paper presented at the Keynote Address: ISANA Victoria State Conference Melbourne. Sull, E.C. (2005) “Podcasting Lectures and More” Chronicle of Higher Education 52(14) p.55. Tynan B & Colbran S “Podcasting, student learning and expectations” In 'Who's learning? Whose technology? : proceedings [of] the 23rd annual conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, 3-6 December 2006, the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia' edited by L Markauskaite, P Goodyear and P Reimann, pages 825-832. Sydney : Sydney University Press. William, R. & Clark, Lloyd (2004) “College Students' Ratings of Student Effort, Student Ability and Teacher Input as Correlates of Student Performance on Multiple-Choice Exams” Educational Research, 46(3) 229-239.

Author Information

Anthony Mark Holland

University of Technology Sydney

Education

Broadway

Peter Wells

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

David Bond

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

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