Profcasts and Class Attendance — Does Year in Program Matter?

Keywords:

• mpeg-4 files
• profcasts
• enhanced podcasts
• attendance
• absenteeism
• program year

Introduction

The use of technology to capture the audio and visual elements of lectures, to engage students in course concepts, and to provide feedback to assignments has become a mainstream practice in higher education through podcasting and lecture capturing mechanisms (Deal, 2007; Blaisdell, 2006; Nagel, 2008). Instructors can create short podcasts or videos to produce ‘nuggets’ of information for students to engage in outside of normal class time (Cann, 2007) or they can create alternative representations of lectures that students can refer to after the live lecture is over (Laing et al., 2006). Students express satisfaction with having access to audio podcasts of lectures, although there is evidence that video, rather than audio podcasts, are more valuable and more frequently accessed by students (Guertin et al., 2007; Cann, 2007; Nagel, 2008). There is evidence that absenteeism is not encouraged by providing supplementary course materials (Grabe and Christopherson, 2008; Copley, 2007; Hove and Corcoran, 2008); however, Lane (2006) did report that class attendance dropped after the introduction of audio podcasts. In any case there is a persistent concern among instructors that offering students access to alternative forms of lectures will have a detrimental effect on class attendance, which in turn will impact their academic performance. Their concerns seem valid as there is ample evidence that class attendance and academic success are linked (Gump, 2006; Dollinger et al., 2007; Chen and Lin, 2008). When supplementary course materials in the form of mpeg-4 multimedia files of PowerPoint lecture slides combined with the instructor’s voice were made available in two Biology courses at the University of Waterloo, one introductory and one advanced, we decided to gather feedback from the students on how they used these materials and whether they reported that they missed more classes after these multimedia files became available.

The Courses

Mpeg-4 multimedia files can combine the audio portion of a lecture in synchronization with PowerPoint slides and can be played on a personal computer, listened to on a mp3 player, or viewed and listened to on an iPod. These files were created during lectures using Profcast software by one of the authors in two of her biology courses halfway through the winter term of 2007. The files could have been uploaded to a site such as iTunesU for syndicated download, to provide enhanced podcasts, but were instead uploaded after each class to the course website in the learning management system, therefore not delivered as podcasts in the true sense of the word. However, students could download the files to their mp3/mp4 players or interact with them on their own or institutional computers at any time (only a ‘feed’ to syndicate their availability was not used) so we have referred to them as ‘podcasts’ for the rest of this article to reflect this situation.

One course, a large introductory genetics course, was made up of three sections of approximately 300 students each. A large majority of students in the course were in their first year of studies. The other course was an upper level virology course which had 80 students. The virology students were mainly in their third or fourth year of study. In both courses the multimedia files were uploaded into the course site in the learning management system immediately after each lecture. At the end of the course all students were asked to give feedback on their use of these course materials. The feedback was collected through an online survey that was also integrated into the learning management system. The survey asked students to report whether they used the ‘podcasts’ (the generic term used by the instructor to describe these files), how many they used, how they used them in their course work, and whether having access to the ‘podcasts’ changed their attendance patterns in this class. They were also asked to comment on the strengths and weakness for having the multimedia files available in the course.

Survey Results

The response rate to the online survey was 23% (n = 894) in the introductory genetics course and 42% (n = 80) in the advanced virology course. Two hundred (90%) of mostly first year students and 28 (80%) of the higher level students who answered the survey reported that they had used the mpeg-4 files during the term. Both groups found that having access to the ‘podcasts’ was helpful. In both courses the most frequent response to the item “Rate the degree to which having podcasts available was helpful to you in understanding course concepts”, was 5 or “extremely helpful”. The average response was 4.4 in the introductory class and 4.2 in the advanced class, where 1= not helpful at all, 2= somewhat helpful, 3 = helpful, 4 = very helpful, 5 = extremely helpful (see Table 1). This was expected as other researchers have reported that students appreciate having access to these supplementary materials (Copley, 2007; Lane, 2006). The data collected on how students used the materials were also consistent between the courses. When asked “How did you use the podcasts?”, respondents selected “to study for the final exam at the end of term” most often, followed by the responses “to catch up missed classes”, “to review a specific topic to make or revise notes after lecture”, and “to reinforce my understanding of specific topics after lecture”(Table 1). Students could choose any or all of these options for this question.

Sixty-five (37%) of the respondents in the introductory course reported that the availability of ‘podcasts’ changed their class attendance patterns, while only 3 (10%) of those responding to the survey in the advanced course reported a change. In the introductory year course, 26 of the students who responded that their attendance patterns changed also reported that they missed a lot more classes than normal, or that they did not attend any classes after the new course materials were introduced. None of the students in the advanced course reported that they missed a lot more classes than normal or that they did not attend any classes after new course materials were introduced.

Students’ text comments on the perceived strengths and weakness of having the new materials available in the course were analysed thematically. Three main cited strengths of the use of the multimedia files emerged: to understand a concept not understood in class; to help with note taking; and to help if a class was missed. It is of interest that both groups reported that the main weaknesses of ‘podcasts’ were that other students would skip class more and that they themselves would skip more classes, so the issue of increasing absenteeism through the provision of supplementary material would appear to be a concern for students as well as instructors (see Table 1).

Table 1 Survey Results from the introductory Genetics course (220 responses from 894 enrolled) and the Advanced Virology course (35 responses from 80 enrolled students) describing how ‘podcasts’ were used.

	Introductory Genetics	Advanced Virology
Number of students who reported that they used the ‘podcasts’	200	28
used to study for the final exam at the end of term	163	26
used to catch up missed classes	145	20
used to review a specific topic to make or revise notes after lecture	127	16
used to reinforce their understanding of specific topics after lecture	120	14
podcast availability changed their class attendance patterns	65	3
they missed a lot more classes or did not attend further classes due to the availability of ‘podcasts’	26	0
a weakness of ‘podcasts’ was that other students would skip class more	64	16
a weakness of ‘podcasts’ was that they themselves would skip class more	18	1

Discussion

Even though the response rate to the survey was low in the introductory class, it is clear that the respondents in both courses found that having access to the supplementary multimedia files was helpful, and that these students use them for valid purposes (such as reviewing for the final exam and making notes). This pilot study also revealed one difference between the two courses with respect to absenteeism. Students in the large, introductory course, with mostly first year students, reported a much greater tendency to miss “a lot more classes” than normal because of the availability of ‘podcasts’ than upper year students. Both groups reported that having access to these materials represented a temptation for others and themselves to be absent from class but that they were a helpful resource when a class was missed. It is a cause for concern that the younger, first year students who benefit most from routine contact with the instructor and fellow students (Brocato, 1989), are more likely to take advantage of the opportunity to miss class and use the supplementary materials as a replacement. We have no evidence that our absentee first year students perform poorly when compared to their peers who attend regularly. They may even perform better than their classmates who attend class, particularly if they use the multimedia files strategically to make up for missed lectures, to review challenging concepts, and then for revision prior to the exam. Further research into the relationship between academic achievement and students’ reported uses of the multimedia files may clarify this. We are also interested in extending our research to find the relationship between year in program and size of class and the proportion of students who report that they missed class because the supplementary materials were available. Insights into these relationships may be useful to instructors who are thinking about including enhanced podcasts, audio podcasts or lecturecasts in their courses as supplementary materials and are weighing the potential impact on attendance and the increased temptation to miss class against the learning value and convenience to students that these materials present.