title: A survey of first-year biology student opinions regarding live lectures and recorded lectures as learning tools.
abstract: A cohort of first-year biology students was surveyed regarding their opinions and viewing habits for live and recorded lectures. Most respondents (87%) attended live lectures as a rule (attenders), with 66% attending more than two-thirds of the lectures. In contrast, only 52% accessed recordings and only 13% viewed more than two-thirds of the available recordings. Respondents regarded lectures as efficient for information delivery (75%), and 89% enjoyed live lectures because they were useful for learning (89%), understanding coursework (94%), and keeping up with the subject (93%). Lecture enjoyment was driven less by entertainment (34%) or interaction with the lecturers (47%), although most students preferred an entertaining lecturer to a factual expert (72%). Exam marks were positively correlated with the number of lectures attended (P < 0.001) and negatively correlated with the number of recordings viewed (P < 0.05), although marks were similar for lecture attenders and nonattenders (P > 0.05). Lecture attenders mostly missed lectures to complete assessments during the same week (68%), whereas nonattenders were more likely to miss lectures due to outside commitments or preference for study from books or recorded lectures (P < 0.001). Recordings were used to replace missed lectures (64%), rather than for revision, and were viewed mostly alone (96%) in one sitting (65%). Only 22% of respondents agreed that some lectures could be replaced by recordings, but 59% agreed with having some videoconference lectures from experts on another campus. Overall, this cohort showed a clear preference for live lectures over recordings, with limited support for synchronous videoconference lectures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedicine, College of Public Health, Medicine, and Veterinary Science, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, Australia; david.simcock@jcu.edu.au.|Deviot Institute, Deviot, Tasmania, Australia.
authors.forename: D C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Simcock
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, College of Health, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand; and.
authors.forename: W H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Chua
authors.affiliation: Institute of Veterinary, Animal, and Biomedical Science, College of Science, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hekman
authors.affiliation: Institute of Food Science and Technology, College of Health, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand; and.
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Levin
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedicine, College of Public Health, Medicine, and Veterinary Science, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, Australia.|Deviot Institute, Deviot, Tasmania, Australia.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D001695:Biology / Q000193:education*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D013336:Students, Health Occupations; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013663:Teaching; D014741:Video Recording / Q000379:methods*