Owston et al’s article claim to contribute a better understanding of the correlation between students’ perceptions of lecture capture and their academic performance. The paper focuses its analysis on higher education and the study is made in a single university.
Based on previous studies, the article aims to point out the impact of the lecture recording on the learning of university students, their attendance at face to face classes, and their grades. The study is reinforced by clear figures that are intended to validate their study as well as their conclusions and correlations. I appreciate that even I struggle to highlight the strengths of the article, I recognise that the authors make an effort to recognise their limitations as well as presenting different resources to bolster their conclusions, using previous studies with similar context.
As a reader, I can have a good general idea of the reality of lecturer recording (in 2011), and see some unexpected results of the impact on the students’ performance. I guess that in 2011 the literature about the use of lecture recording was limited and Owston et al were able to find some correlations and ideas associated with the frequency of viewing and their academic performance. In the paper, there is an effort to give value to the lecture recordings beyond the bad or good influence it has on the attendance of the students, or their grades. Although, I found their suggestions quite underwhelming and with a very essentialism ideology, I want to believe that research in this perspective offers some opportunities for learning, or at least, opens new questions for further studies.
I found many methodical errors in the article. First of all, there is a clear ideology toward an instrumentalist outcome. The five questions formulated in the paper are showing a clear essentialism bias, where the main assumption is that lecturer recording will have a good impact, improving academic performance. In this way, giving an enchantment power to the technology without questioning nothing else. Also, there is a lack of critique and questioning about the results and the study itself, that resonates a lot with Bayne article we read last week.
For me, it is difficult to see how the authors can compare two situations where you have many variables changing and not a fixed context. for example, in the article, they mention a comparison between classes with recording and without it. I see many variables here that are not fixed: the subject, the teacher, the difficulty, the classmates, the schedule. Their findings are supported by other articles, however, there is a lack of clear research methods. The figures, correlations, and assumptions made are difficult to swallow. I am missing a clear research question and hypothesis about what the researchers are looking for.
When I started reading the article, I expected to have a clear image of what is understood for lecturer recording and a description of what can be the pedagogical goal. Instead, we find a poor definition and examination of what is a lecturer recording and lack of complexity and critique about it.
For example, when the authors suggest that high achievers, who watched the recordings fewer times, is because they were only reviewing or checking the content. In my opinion, the authors made an arbitrary correlation here. Maybe high achievers have professional/personal background that helps to understand the content better, or maybe they have a study group, or maybe they found a better video that explained the lecturer, or etc. There are so many possible answers, and I found it quite irresponsible to make a suggestion in only one direction.
Furthermore, I think the data used is quite small, also only is used a single university. Probably the study was relevant considering the date of the publication. However, I think the fact students are the ones reporting the majority of the information it losses credibility. I would like to see more reliable data.
Overall, I didn’t enjoy the article because of the lack of gruelling. But as a conclusion, I would say that this article offered me the opportunity to see a clear instrumentalist approach to the use of technology and allowed me to understand better concepts that were discussed last week, and it helped me to fix concepts.
Owston, R., Lupshenyuk, D., and Widemand, H. (2011). Lecture capture in large undergraduate classes: Student perceptions and academic performance. Internet and Higher Education, 14, pp.262-268.
Hamilton, E., and Friesen, N. (2013). Online education: a science and technology studies perspective. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 39(2), pp. 1-21.
Bayne, S. (2015). What’s the matter with ‘technology-enhanced learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, 40(1), pp. 5-20.
Edwards, M., and Clinton M. (2018) A study exploring the impact of lecture capture availability and lecture capture usage on student attendance and attainment, pp. 403–421.
‘I found many methodical errors on the article. First of all, there is a clear ideology toward an instrumentalist outcome. The five questions formulated in the paper are showing a clear essentialism bias, where the main assumption is that lecturer recording will have a good impact, improving academic performance.’
How did you feel about the authors attempting five questions. For me this felt like quite a lot to undertake. In fact I don’t really think they addressed all of them in the same depth. I wondered perhaps whether for the focus of the article the authors might have narrowed their focus to one or two questions, enabling them to go into more depth?
‘When I started reading the article, I expected to have a clear image of what is understood for lecturer recording and a description of what can be the pedagogical goal. Instead, we find a poor definition and examination of what is a lecturer recording and lack of complexity and critique about it.’
I’m glad you’ve highlighted this because it is something I find quite often and a bit frustrating. I get the point that the authors might be particularly interested in speaking to an audience who are already familiar with the field, however I always really like an article (or assignment or blog post) that takes a bit of time early on to define or take a position on the different terms being used. If nothing else it makes the article more immediately accessible to a wider audience which must be a good thing. And picking up from our conversations about the Bayne article last week, taking time to define terms can very helpfully force us to really think about some of the assumptions we are making with the terminology we use, and how that can frame technology in particular ways.
‘In the paper, there is an effort to give value to the lecture recordings beyond the bad or good influence it has on the attendance of the students, or their grades. Although, I found their suggestions quite underwhelming and with a very essentialism ideology, I want to believe that research in this perspective offers some opportunities for learning, or at least, opens new questions for further studies.’
Something I wondered about was whether the authors could have done more to allow different ideas to emerge. I wondered whether the survey approach did a sufficient job of enabling students voices to really be heard? Could it be that semi-structured interviews would have been more able for students to draw attention to the wider (and perhaps unanticipated) effects of lecture capture? I appreciate though that there is scope to any study and that perhaps practical limitations (time, staffing) would have made this difficult.
‘Furthermore, I think the data used is quite small, also only is used a single university.’
I think there is case for a small scale study and even a small data set, if the aim is to focus on a specific issue in real depth. What I would have found helpful was a bit more context about the university, because higher institutions (and their respective student bodies and ways of teaching) can vary quite considerably based upon their traditions and focus. Could it be that local conditions would make a group of students more inclined to attend class than in other settings?
‘Overall, I didn’t enjoy the article because of the lack of grueling.’
I probably don’t need to flag this up really, but just to say that in your course assignment it is most likely that you will need to take a more formal academic voice.
‘For example, when the authors suggest that high achievers, who watched the recordings fewer times, is because they were only reviewing or checking the content. In my opinion, the authors made an arbitrary correlation here. Maybe high achievers have professional/personal background that helps to understand the content better, or maybe they have a study group, or maybe they found a better video that explained the lecturer, or etc. There are so many possible answers, and I found it quite irresponsible to make a suggestion in only one direction.’
Yes, I’m glad you identified this. It does seem a weakness in what is being presented – the presented data does not necessarily align with the arguments being put forward. It is certainly the case that alternative or contrasting conclusions could be drawn here.
Not that this was the purpose of the critical analysis activity, how I’ve been thinking this morning about whether, if the same research was undertaken today, it might produce different results. Certainly in the UK context, over the last couple of years lecture capture has been discussed (although not always in the research literature) in relation to surveillance, safety, privacy, strategy and a host of other ways beyond the interest in grades and attendance: I don’t think these issues were quite to the fore in 2011. If nothing else, it does show that the relationship between and technology is multi-faceted and constantly changing.
Thanks for taking time to prepare this response to the article Lidia. It’s really good to see you be willing to think deeply and critically about the reading: really stopping to think and to question and to respond. I was also glad to see you bringing ideas from Hamilton & Friesen to support your critique, which gave it extra nuance. This inquisitiveness is going to very helpful for the course assignment at the end of the IDEL course (and beyond).