Online lecture recordings and lecture attendance: Investigating student preferences in a large first year psychology course

Abstract

<p>While blended learning has been around for sometime, the interplay between lecture recordings, lecture attendance and grades needs further examination particularly for large cohorts of over 1000 students in 500 seat lecture theatres. This paper reports on such an investigation with a cohort of 1450 first year psychology students’ who indicated whether they frequently attended lectures or not. The division helped ascertain differences and similarities in preferences for utilising online recordings. Overall, non-frequent attendees were more likely not to use lecture recordings (48.1%) to make up a missed lecture than frequent attendees (34.3%). Surprisingly, in the last week of semester, 29% of students reported not yet accessing lecture recordings. Students had the intention to use lecture recordings as they envisaged these to be helpful for learning and commented that they would be adversely affected if recordings were not available. In fact, students are passionate about lecture recordings. Analytics show that after lecture 7, each lecture recording attracted 600 or less unique visits (hits) supporting the finding that most students make strategic use of learning resources available within the blended learning environment.</p>

Lecture-recording technology in higher education: Exploring lecturer and student views across the disciplines

“…Overall, lecturers believed that the group of students who benefited most from lecture-recordings were those students who were already highly motivated, enthusiastic and high achieving -a group that would do well regardless. This resonates well with studies such as Yeung et al (2016b), which found that students who were non-frequent lecture attendees were also not likely to use lecturerecordings to make up for a missed a lecture, compared to those who were frequent attendees. Our finding in this regard builds on the existing body of scholarship indicating a variety of reasons behind students' choosing to skip a lecture, regardless of the availability of the lecture-recording.…”

“…Similarly, in the Marchand, Pearson, and Albon (2014) study only 10% of 210 participating students said they were using recordings as a substitute to attending a lecture. The same study (Marchand et al, 2014) found that lecturers did not notice any changes in students' overall academic performance but perceived increased absenteeism; while a study by Yeung, Raju, and Sharma (2016b) indicated that students who were nonfrequent lecture attendees were not likely to use lecture-recordings to make up for a missed a lecture compared to those who were frequent attendees. Further, a survey of over 500 students (Gysbers, Johnston, Hancock, & Denyer, 2011) found that the majority of students always or mostly attended lectures even though lecture-recordings were available -students said they perceived lecture-recordings as not always reliable and as limited in the content they captured.…”

“…As such, studies that specifically compare one method of delivery over another for benefits and drawbacks are needed. Whilst there are institutional and cross-institutional case studies of the use of lecture-recording systems (Friedland, Knipping, Schulte, & Tapia, 2004;Larkin, 2010;Phillips et al, 2007) as well as discipline-and cohort-specific studies (Johnston, Massa, & Burne, 2013;Leadbeater, Shuttleworth, Couperthwaite, & Nightingale, 2013;SpaethHilbert, Seufert, & Wesner, 2013;Yeung, Raju, & Sharma, 2016a), this paper addresses current knowledge gaps by presenting evidence of disciplinary differences amongst lecturers in their views about the use of lecture-recordings, and expanding on comparisons between student-lecturer experiences following the introduction of Echo360 as an opt-out system.…”

Exploring students’ uses of and dispositions towards learning technologies in an Australian enabling course

“…Yet, the process of leveraging technologies as engagement and content delivery tools in this manner can be somewhat fraught, as faculty often perceive the online availability of resources as having a negative impact on attendance (Davis, Connolly, & Linfield, 2009). However, empirical data indicates that the availability of lecture recordings does not negatively impact attendance and students value lecture recordings, not as substitutes for attendance, but as 'back-up' options and for revision purposes (White, 2009;Yeung, Raju & Sharma, 2016). The responses provided by DHE students affirm these findings, as students' statements regarding online class materials were frequently motivated by a desire to engage in independent study:…”

The flipped classroom: A learning model to increase student engagement not academic achievement

“…A decline in student attendance on campus nationally and internationally has been highlighted as a barrier to student engagement and achievement (Barlow & Fleischer, 2011;Huxham, 2005;López-Bonilla & López-Bonilla, 2015;Marburger, 2001;Newman-Ford, Fitzgibbon, Lloyd, & Thomas, 2008;Schmidt et al, 2015). There are a number of studies which suggest that attendance is positively correlated with academic success (Marburger, 2001;Newman-Ford et al, 2008;Yeung, Raju, & Sharma, 2016). Thus, to improve student engagement with university, educators need to deliver curricula which foster relationships and promote active learning 1 Topic is the term used in the university where the study was implemented to describe what is a semester-long teaching activity.…”