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Delivery and assessment of the curriculum Digital technologies to enhance learning and teaching and assessment. Enabling student development and achievement Online learning qualitative quantitative Student engagement in learning Student experience Technology and digital literacies

Students’ insights on the use of video lectures in online classes

Blog Authors: Walter Patterson, John McVeigh, Jan Robertson, Joe Wilson, Tony Adams, Tracey Howe

Image: Iase.bodh / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

This week our College closed in response to Covid-19 epidemic sweeping across the UK. We selected this weeks paper Students’ insights on the use of video lectures (VL) in online classes to help us explore options for remote learning for our students. The overarching question motivating this research focused on students’ perception of their own learning in courses using VL.

Here’s what they did

This was mixed method study using surveys and focus group as a source of data collection combined with a review of previous research on the topic. Selection criteria for participants included: (1) graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in online courses for Business and Education majors in the 2014–15 academic year; (2) online courses that include VL of any type; and (3) instructors’ approval to explore the design of the online courses. 96 out of 493 (424 undergraduate students and 69 graduate students) were recruited – 10 graduate and 86 undergraduate.

The online survey consisted of 18 questions that focused on 5 main categories: overall experience as online students, interaction with VL, perceived learning impact and integration of VL with other course activities. The focus group was administered via a web conferencing system.

Data from the focus group was analyzed qualitatively only. Basic descriptive statistics and graphical analysis were performed with quantitative data 

Here’s what they found

Three factors predict students’ satisfaction rate and their perception of relevance of VL in their own learning.

  • familiarity with the media,
  • the extension of experience using video in learning, and
  • educational level or academic status.

The author/s concluded

This study suggests that courses in higher education should consider the inclusion of VL in their course materials because the use of video meets different learners’ preferences, increases students’ engagement with content, enhances students’ perception of better learning experiences through content interaction, and reinforces teaching presence in online courses.

Our Journal Club’s views

Who are the authors of the paper and where do they work? Dr Norma I. Scagnoli is the senior director of eLearning in the College of Business and holds a position of Research Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois. The other authors are also based there.

What do we know about the journal? BJET has just published its 50th Anniversary edition. The Journal is published by Wiley on behalf of The British Educational Research Association (BERA). Impact factor:2.588 (2018). ISI Journal Citation Reports © Ranking: 2018:31/243 (Education & Educational Research).

BJET is a long standing journal but it is held to be academic in it focus and its treatment of EdTech is quite different from current ALT Publications which tend to focus on ‘real world’ matters. BJET articles were characterised as being abstract, nuanced, distanced from real world practice.

What about the methodology used?

The abstract did not offer much of an explanation of the journal article – it was more of a teaser to read further. At first sight the ‘practitioner notes’ (included in a box) appeared to give a clear explanation of the context, methods and outcomes of the study but this was re-visited later.

The research questions were easy to find and the methodology was deemed to be appropriate (mixed methods using surveys, focus groups). The inclusion of the survey questions and the focus group questions in the appendix was appreciated.

However a significant weakness in this paper is that it provides no indication of the context of the undergraduate or postgraduate students who participated. Participants were clearly self-selecting from the purposeful sample with a high risk of bias to the qualitative data. The fact that only 10 graduate students participated made some of the conclusions and analysis suspect. Also, the inclusion of graduate students made the analysis and results more complex than was required for this study

It would have been good to have some demographics of the participants in terms of: age, experience, and access to technology – so that some comparisons could be with the student cohort at our College.

Nor was it possible to make sense of the data in the light of the particular population sampled. It was agreed that it would be unsafe to make these conclusions generalisable. It was also noted that the use of a particular online tool (Zoom) for the focus group could have excluded some from participating.

The statistical analysis was over complicated and a number of different tests had been carried out on the data to uncover where some statistical significance might arise – rather than proposing a hypothesis and using the data to confirm or reject that hypothesis (which is how statistical analysis should be performed).

In the discussion of the results it was noted that the percentage figures could be quite misleading and the absolute numbers should have been included. Also the choice of dark columns for the very small graduate sample meant that the reader’s eye was drawn to these figures rather than those of the much larger sample of undergraduate students. A question was also raised about the meaning of the term “Effect on learning” in the analysis.

It was concluded that any statements made about differences between graduate and undergraduate experiences and satisfaction were untenable because of the small sample size for the former.

Returning to the practitioner notes it was then realised that some of the statements made in the Notes were NOT established evidentially in this paper (even though they were seen to be reasonably correct.

Our conclusions are – that this evidence has a high risk of bias.

Implications for our practice

The paper gives no hint of the practical difficulties of recording and broadcasting video lessons where artefacts that can be freely used as copyright ‘fair dealing’ in the classroom became a breach of copyright when recorded to open broadcast. There are issues to do with staff intellectual property rights of video material ,and this has been the subject of much negotiation and discussion between institutions and staff unions. The paper offers no way of no advice on picking a way through such issues.

It was noted that the current Covid-19 crisis was driving delivery to online and that this had the potential to change the face of further education for the future.

Next steps

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What do you think?

References

Scagnoli, N.I., Choo, J. and Tian, J. (2019), Students’ insights on the use of video lectures in online classes. Br J Educ Technol, 50: 399-414. doi:10.1111/bjet.12572

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Our Blog Posts are written by staff at City of Glasgow College to inform and inspire our practice. We meet together at the Journal Club to consider the latest evidence to provide insights on hot topics related to learning and teaching, quality assurance and subject needs. It forms part of our activity for General Teaching Council Scotland registration and Professional Standards for lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges demonstrating that we are a self-critical staff community.

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