It is only a single small study, but eSchoolNews highlights research suggesting students who watched a recording of a psychology lecture performed better on an evaluation of the lecture material than did students who watched the lecture live. The difference seems to be attributable in part to the ability of students to pause and rewind the recorded lecture,
Students who watched the lecture podcast–available from the iTunes U online video library–scored an average of 71 percent. Students who sat through the 30-minute classroom lecture scored an average of 62 percent, according to the study.
Dani McKinney, the study’s lead researcher, said test scores were most dramatically affected by note taking. Students who watched the video lecture and took notes, McKinney said, scored an average of 15 points higher than their peers in the lecture hall.
“They listened to [the podcast] over and over,” said McKinney, a Fredonia psychology professor since 2006 who completed the iTunes study with researchers Jennifer Dyck and Elise Luber. “Listening passively doesn’t get anything accomplished. It’s not enough to just do rote memory and repetition.”
Examining the notes taken by students who participated in the study, McKinney said it was clear many students took advantage of the pause and rewind buttons.
“People stop the podcast as they go along,” she said, adding that professors often go too quickly through lecture slides, giving students little time to jot down notes. “When I lecture, I don’t stop unless you ask a question. … A lot of professors act like it’s a race to get through those slides instead of a learning experience.”
It is a shame the article and study focused so much on a specific technology — iTunes podcasting — which is surely ancillary to the fact that this was recorded video that could be easily rewound and paused.