Podcast trumps lecture in one college study
Students who listened to a lecture via iTunes U outperformed those who attended in person — pause button a factor
By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor
The ability to pause and rewind podcast lectures gave the upper hand to college students in a recent study that compared the performance of students who attended a lecture in person and those who viewed it from iTunes University.
The study, “iTunes University and the Classroom: Can Podcasts Replace Professors?,” was conducted at the State University of New York Fredonia. It called for some introductory psychology students to watch a recorded lecture available online and others to attend a traditional classroom 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,
Doesn’t one need professors to have an iTunes University podcast?
I suppose that is true, Nemski. However, if the performance is better after listening to a podcast, perhaps one professor could have thousands of students, with little or no extra work.
I guess at some point you can get a degree at $0.99 per class plus $100/test. It would be a pretty cool model.
We can finally get rid of all those costly professors. The grading of a thousand students would be a bitch, though.