Attendance is voluntary in many college classes, primarily because of the difficulty in taking attendance on a regular basis, but also because of the view that students should have some autonomy in determining the manner in which they engage with academic material. Mandatory attendance policy becomes more of an issue, however, where there is a 'professional' element to a programme. In nursing, for example, there is a high minimum attendance stipulated by the Irish Nursing Board (2005): students must attend 80% of a minimum of 1,533 hours.
There may also be outcomes other than academic achievement which have an important relationship with students’ lecture attendance. A recent report from the institutional research office at UCD has recommended that mandatory attendance policy could be one mechanism to reduce student drop-out (Blaney and Mulkeen, 2009): 'Student Retention in a Modular World - A Study of Retention of UCD Entrants: 1999-2007'. In addition, I recently mentioned on the blog that Irish colleges may soon be offered financial 'incentives' to meet targets in areas such as the retention of students and the rate of course completion. "If they fail to meet these targets, they will face financial penalties." So there are plenty of reasons to care about students' attendance.
There is much debate on what incentives or penalties are appropriate in relation to mandatory attendance policies. This is because penalising students for not showing up can be seen as double jeopardy: they would be punished by lower test scores in addition to a lower attendance score. While some instructors may dislike mandatory attendance policies because they can be a lot of work to enforce, there are recent technological advances such as “dibbers” (used at the Lancaster University geography department) or “clickers” (Hoekstra, 2008) which substantially ease the burden of collecting attendance data. Smart-card technology is available explicitly for the use of measuring student attendance; the TDS Student Attendance Monitoring Solution is currently being used at DCU. There are even new electronic systems which are being used to detect the ID cards students are carrying as they enter classrooms at Arizona University.
A backlash to all of this emerged this year in the Guardian newspaper, with the predictable question being posed: Is this new development necessary documentation or 'Orwellian' surveillance? One comment reads: "Why should the university care whether students attend a lecture or not? By the time a student reaches the university, they should be responsible for their own schedule and actions. Seems to me to be a technological solution to a non-problem." Analogies can be drawn here with the libertarian paternalism debates in public behavioural economics. Liam went through these recently on the blog. Keeping retention and graduation rates high is a major priority for many universities, but are the measures described above too extreme?
Showing posts with label lectures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lectures. Show all posts
Monday, November 15, 2010
UCD Attendance Survey
A short while ago I posted about lecture attendance at Irish universities. Recent research by myself and others from Geary has shown that approximately 12% of Irish university students claim to attend all of their lectures. Overall, the mean-level of percentage lectures attended is 83% in Round 2 of the Irish Universities Study, and 84% in Round 3. This is a self-reported behaviour, and one that is subject to much comparison of anecdote amongst academic instructors. Furthermore, there is reasonable ground to suspect self-reported lecture attendance to be over-stated due to the phenomenon of social desirability bias. Social desirability bias is a term used to describe the tendency of respondents to reply in a manner that will be viewed favourably by others; see Bound et al. (2001) on Measurement Error in Surveys for a discussion (Handbook of Econometrics: Vol. 5).
While benchmarking against official data is difficult in the case of lecture attendance, a data-comparison can be made with a comprehensive attendance survey (measured by head-count) that was conducted at UCD during the academic year 2008/09. Under the guidance of Gabrielle Kelly (2010), students in an undergraduate Survey Sampling class carried out a survey to estimate the attendance rate at lectures in science modules in UCD. Only first-years in the UCD College of Engineering, Mathematical and Physical Sciences and the UCD College of Life Science were included (this was due to student drop-out in first-year being prevalent in these colleges). The overall attendance rate was 47.3% (+ 4.4%). However, there is also a (statistically significant) decrease in attendance rate as class size increases. The figure below (taken from the report on the UCD Attendance Survey; 2009) shows a plot of attendance rate vs. enrolment. The higher attendance rates between 70% and 80% occurred for smaller class sizes of between 30 and 160, whereas the lower rates of 15% to 35% occurred for larger class sizes of between 185 and 485.
It should be noted that there are some instances of attendance rates above 80% (in the UCD Attendance Survey), which is close to the mean-level of percentage lectures attended in Rounds 2 and 3 of the Irish University Study. The Irish Universities Study includes students from all courses but the UCD Attendance Survey only includes students enrolled in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) courses. These STEM courses have a greater amount of lectures to attend, which could possibly result in lower levels of attendance (compared to non-STEM courses). The above consideration would lead one to expect a higher level of percentage lectures attended in the Irish University Study, compared to the UCD Attendance Survey.
In relation to potentially unresolved concerns following from the comparison of anecdote amongst academic instructors, it should also be noted that students may be attending more of their lectures in the recession than they used to beforehand. University students in the UK study for two hours and 12 minutes more (per week) now than they did two years ago (in 2007), according to the Higher Education Policy Institute (2009). Given lower levels of labour demand in the part-time jobs market, there is certainly less opportunity for students to allocate their time to work (i.e. diminished opportunity-cost of study-time). In addition, the evolving crisis in the graduate labour market may motivate students to be more patient; and achieve higher academic standards (1 in 3 men under the age of 25 are currently unemployed in Ireland).
While benchmarking against official data is difficult in the case of lecture attendance, a data-comparison can be made with a comprehensive attendance survey (measured by head-count) that was conducted at UCD during the academic year 2008/09. Under the guidance of Gabrielle Kelly (2010), students in an undergraduate Survey Sampling class carried out a survey to estimate the attendance rate at lectures in science modules in UCD. Only first-years in the UCD College of Engineering, Mathematical and Physical Sciences and the UCD College of Life Science were included (this was due to student drop-out in first-year being prevalent in these colleges). The overall attendance rate was 47.3% (+ 4.4%). However, there is also a (statistically significant) decrease in attendance rate as class size increases. The figure below (taken from the report on the UCD Attendance Survey; 2009) shows a plot of attendance rate vs. enrolment. The higher attendance rates between 70% and 80% occurred for smaller class sizes of between 30 and 160, whereas the lower rates of 15% to 35% occurred for larger class sizes of between 185 and 485.
It should be noted that there are some instances of attendance rates above 80% (in the UCD Attendance Survey), which is close to the mean-level of percentage lectures attended in Rounds 2 and 3 of the Irish University Study. The Irish Universities Study includes students from all courses but the UCD Attendance Survey only includes students enrolled in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) courses. These STEM courses have a greater amount of lectures to attend, which could possibly result in lower levels of attendance (compared to non-STEM courses). The above consideration would lead one to expect a higher level of percentage lectures attended in the Irish University Study, compared to the UCD Attendance Survey.
In relation to potentially unresolved concerns following from the comparison of anecdote amongst academic instructors, it should also be noted that students may be attending more of their lectures in the recession than they used to beforehand. University students in the UK study for two hours and 12 minutes more (per week) now than they did two years ago (in 2007), according to the Higher Education Policy Institute (2009). Given lower levels of labour demand in the part-time jobs market, there is certainly less opportunity for students to allocate their time to work (i.e. diminished opportunity-cost of study-time). In addition, the evolving crisis in the graduate labour market may motivate students to be more patient; and achieve higher academic standards (1 in 3 men under the age of 25 are currently unemployed in Ireland).
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Naked Lecturing
In an article in yesterday's Irish Times, Ferdinand Von Prondzynski calls for lecturers to adopt "Naked Teaching". Don't get too excited, he means ditching powerpoint slides.
"The standard approach – 36 slides spelling out all the key points, with the presentation printed out for everyone in the room – increasingly represents bad practice, as it may actually inhibit the intellectual connection between the presenter, the topic and the audience, creating an automated process of very little value."
"The standard approach – 36 slides spelling out all the key points, with the presentation printed out for everyone in the room – increasingly represents bad practice, as it may actually inhibit the intellectual connection between the presenter, the topic and the audience, creating an automated process of very little value."
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Lecture Attendance at Irish Universities
"If I’m Not Learning, Why Go?" This is the title of a blog-post from last year by Stephen Kinsella. Here's an excerpt: "One answer MIT surveyors found was when students didn’t feel they were learning, they didn’t go. This is certainly because the penalty to not going to a lecture is reduced by the presence of online learning materials like power point slides and handouts." Here's a link to a newsletter about the MIT Survey: Clay, T. and Breslow, L. (2006) “Why Students Don’t Attend Class“, MIT Faculty Newsletter, XVIII(4).
According to the MIT survey, students’ attitudes toward lectures vary widely, from "I never miss them" to "they’re worthless," with most responses falling somewhere in between. Most students reported they try to attend lectures, and usually do, missing them from time to time as the result of academic, extracurricular, or personal conflicts. "When asked to estimate what percentage of their lectures they attend, about two of every three respondents (67%) estimated that they attend at least 90%, three of every four (76%) that they attend at least 75%, and more than nine in 10 (93%) that they attend at least half."
Recent research by myself and others from Geary has shown that approximately 12% of Irish university students claim to attend all of their lectures. 32% of students claim to attend 90% or more of their lectures. 47% of students claim to attend 80% or more of their lectures. 57% of students claim to attend 70% or more of their lectures. Finally, 67% of students claim to attend at least half of their lectures. However, one must be cautious in drawing comparisons between the results from the MIT survey and the survey of Irish university students. The figures quoted above from the MIT survey are based on 47 responses by students in one subject. The figures quoted above from the Irish Universities Study are based on 2,867 responses across all subject areas. And of course, another (perennial) problem is social desirability bias: that is, students may say they attend their lectures because they think they should (say that).
According to Paul Latreille (H/T Stephen Kinsella), "falling lecture attendance among university students has become a major concern in the last few years. While the precise extent of the problem may vary, the phenomenon exists across subjects and has been documented in several countries (e.g. South Africa, Australia and the US, as well as the UK - see for example the references cited in Clearly-Holdforth, 2006). Various explanations have been advanced, including intrinsic factors (e.g. interest, motivation, learning styles and preferences), extrinsic factors (e.g. socio-economic considerations (such as the need to work), family commitments, assignment deadlines) and factors related to the lectures themselves (e.g. quality, value, interest)." Those interested in the role of technology in student learning will find an interesting discussion throughout Latreille's article. Laitrelle also covers the topic of "paternalistic" approaches to encouraging lecture attendance.
In 1993, David Romer published an article which ignited a lively debate about mandatory attendance policy: "Do Students Go to Class? Should They?" Daniel Marburger has investigated the impact of enforcing an attendance policy on absenteeism and student performance. The evidence he produces suggests that an enforced mandatory attendance policy significantly reduces absenteeism and improves exam performance. Alternatively, attendance at classes could also be potentially improved if students made a contribution toward the cost of their education. Finally, another possibility may simply be to communicate to students the importance of attending their lectures. Research papers by Schmidt (AER, 1983), Romer (JEP, 1993) and Durden and Ellis (AER, 1995) all show that lecture attendance is important for attaining high grades. Other studies from Irish settings also show the same: Maloney and Lally (1998), Kirby and McElroy (2003) and Purcell (2007).
Addendum: as is often the case in relation to other questions, establishing causality between lecture attendance and grades is difficult. Papers by Park and Kerr (1990), Bratti and Staffolani (2002) and Martins and Walker (2006) discuss this issue well. I am also reminded of the cartoon below.
According to the MIT survey, students’ attitudes toward lectures vary widely, from "I never miss them" to "they’re worthless," with most responses falling somewhere in between. Most students reported they try to attend lectures, and usually do, missing them from time to time as the result of academic, extracurricular, or personal conflicts. "When asked to estimate what percentage of their lectures they attend, about two of every three respondents (67%) estimated that they attend at least 90%, three of every four (76%) that they attend at least 75%, and more than nine in 10 (93%) that they attend at least half."
Recent research by myself and others from Geary has shown that approximately 12% of Irish university students claim to attend all of their lectures. 32% of students claim to attend 90% or more of their lectures. 47% of students claim to attend 80% or more of their lectures. 57% of students claim to attend 70% or more of their lectures. Finally, 67% of students claim to attend at least half of their lectures. However, one must be cautious in drawing comparisons between the results from the MIT survey and the survey of Irish university students. The figures quoted above from the MIT survey are based on 47 responses by students in one subject. The figures quoted above from the Irish Universities Study are based on 2,867 responses across all subject areas. And of course, another (perennial) problem is social desirability bias: that is, students may say they attend their lectures because they think they should (say that).
According to Paul Latreille (H/T Stephen Kinsella), "falling lecture attendance among university students has become a major concern in the last few years. While the precise extent of the problem may vary, the phenomenon exists across subjects and has been documented in several countries (e.g. South Africa, Australia and the US, as well as the UK - see for example the references cited in Clearly-Holdforth, 2006). Various explanations have been advanced, including intrinsic factors (e.g. interest, motivation, learning styles and preferences), extrinsic factors (e.g. socio-economic considerations (such as the need to work), family commitments, assignment deadlines) and factors related to the lectures themselves (e.g. quality, value, interest)." Those interested in the role of technology in student learning will find an interesting discussion throughout Latreille's article. Laitrelle also covers the topic of "paternalistic" approaches to encouraging lecture attendance.
In 1993, David Romer published an article which ignited a lively debate about mandatory attendance policy: "Do Students Go to Class? Should They?" Daniel Marburger has investigated the impact of enforcing an attendance policy on absenteeism and student performance. The evidence he produces suggests that an enforced mandatory attendance policy significantly reduces absenteeism and improves exam performance. Alternatively, attendance at classes could also be potentially improved if students made a contribution toward the cost of their education. Finally, another possibility may simply be to communicate to students the importance of attending their lectures. Research papers by Schmidt (AER, 1983), Romer (JEP, 1993) and Durden and Ellis (AER, 1995) all show that lecture attendance is important for attaining high grades. Other studies from Irish settings also show the same: Maloney and Lally (1998), Kirby and McElroy (2003) and Purcell (2007).
Addendum: as is often the case in relation to other questions, establishing causality between lecture attendance and grades is difficult. Papers by Park and Kerr (1990), Bratti and Staffolani (2002) and Martins and Walker (2006) discuss this issue well. I am also reminded of the cartoon below.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Lecturing Without Slides - Kinsella
Stephen Kinsella outlines some thoughts on models of how to give lectures and is looking for comments and questions. His basic model is a "pre-podcast" to give the students the pedagogical material. The lecture is then used as a forum for discussion, debate, clarification and so on. Then students are assessed online. Stephen has been doing more than anyone in this neck of the woods to bring technology into the economics classroom and I have been following closely what he has been doing. My own use of technology has mostly been limited to using this blog for communicating more broadly, Beamer and Powerpoint for slides, as well as econometrics software for applied projects, and most importantly maintaining websites for my courses where everything the student could possibly need (reading lists, sample exams, lecture notes and so on) are provided. Having a central space where students can access everything is the most important use of technology, in my experience. The model that Stephen outlines is very tempting though. The best experiences in lectures are when you throw the ball among the class and this is often hard to do if you are trying to get through 100 slides in a couple of hours.
ENTHUSIASTIC ENDORSEMENT
I still believe that expertise and enthusiasm will always dominate format, by which I mean a lecturer who is not an expert on or not convinced by his/her own material will be less favoured by students regardless of slide use. Having said that, variants of what Stephen is suggesting clearly have enormous potential for encouraging a wide form of engagement. The Harvard Justice course by Michael Sandel is my ideal model of what a gold standard course would look like. I think it is groundbreaking in its ambition and scope, allowing anyone with an internet connection to sit through one of Harvard's best courses. This creates an enormous externality. Furthermore, does anyone believe that Sandel's course is going to be less attended next year because he has made all this material available? I would also believe that he is probably raising global demand for this type of knowledge and is probably a complement to people teaching justice courses in other universities rather than a substitute. Thousands of people can access courses in this manner and essentially "audit" them without any certification or mentoring. People who then decide they want to actually train more fully in these disciplines can then enroll and attend more "mentored" lectures along the lines of the ones Stephen is talking about. It encourages us to think a lot more about the value created in the "in-person" lecture and I agree with Stephen that there is an enormous amount that can be done in this setting that is sometimes crowded out by trying to rattle through core material.
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE
The main potential drawback to this model is the time and money resources needed to produce and host the podcasts, and I would be interested in how Stephen addresses this in a later draft. People have high expectations now of sound and picture quality when it comes to accessing podcast material. Even if it is restricted to the students only, a poor quality podcast is hardly a good signal to send about the university one is lecturing in. To get high quality productions may require more expertise than the average lecturer can muster up and more technical support than is feasible if one is lecturing on a daily basis. Perhaps a podcast model is something more suited to a small number of "alpha" courses that are particularly suited to this treatment. I would, in principle, be willing to have video podcasts of my lectures available but I would be nervous if the picture quality were not very high. Another minor point is that no course is a static entity and I am not sure how comfortable I would feel with every lecture I have given being available forever. I am sure there are people with expertise on how to "retire" something from the web so this is hardly insurmountable but it is a concern. Stephen's model doesn't necessarily include making the material available outside the university but it has generally been his practice so interested in keeping that aspect of the discussion open.
ENTHUSIASTIC ENDORSEMENT
I still believe that expertise and enthusiasm will always dominate format, by which I mean a lecturer who is not an expert on or not convinced by his/her own material will be less favoured by students regardless of slide use. Having said that, variants of what Stephen is suggesting clearly have enormous potential for encouraging a wide form of engagement. The Harvard Justice course by Michael Sandel is my ideal model of what a gold standard course would look like. I think it is groundbreaking in its ambition and scope, allowing anyone with an internet connection to sit through one of Harvard's best courses. This creates an enormous externality. Furthermore, does anyone believe that Sandel's course is going to be less attended next year because he has made all this material available? I would also believe that he is probably raising global demand for this type of knowledge and is probably a complement to people teaching justice courses in other universities rather than a substitute. Thousands of people can access courses in this manner and essentially "audit" them without any certification or mentoring. People who then decide they want to actually train more fully in these disciplines can then enroll and attend more "mentored" lectures along the lines of the ones Stephen is talking about. It encourages us to think a lot more about the value created in the "in-person" lecture and I agree with Stephen that there is an enormous amount that can be done in this setting that is sometimes crowded out by trying to rattle through core material.
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE
The main potential drawback to this model is the time and money resources needed to produce and host the podcasts, and I would be interested in how Stephen addresses this in a later draft. People have high expectations now of sound and picture quality when it comes to accessing podcast material. Even if it is restricted to the students only, a poor quality podcast is hardly a good signal to send about the university one is lecturing in. To get high quality productions may require more expertise than the average lecturer can muster up and more technical support than is feasible if one is lecturing on a daily basis. Perhaps a podcast model is something more suited to a small number of "alpha" courses that are particularly suited to this treatment. I would, in principle, be willing to have video podcasts of my lectures available but I would be nervous if the picture quality were not very high. Another minor point is that no course is a static entity and I am not sure how comfortable I would feel with every lecture I have given being available forever. I am sure there are people with expertise on how to "retire" something from the web so this is hardly insurmountable but it is a concern. Stephen's model doesn't necessarily include making the material available outside the university but it has generally been his practice so interested in keeping that aspect of the discussion open.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
DeLong's Economic History
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Harvard Justice Course
Another example of the major colleges making their courses available for anyone on the web. This time it's Michael Sandel's lectures on Justice in Harvard. Absolutely superb production with a really good feature of allowing online comments. Bravo!
link here
link here
Monday, April 06, 2009
Academic Earth
The statistical modelling blog raises the question as to whether websites like the ones below herald the end for the traditional lecturing format - if the top people in the world in their fields are willing to make their videos available then it would be foolish not to integrate them into training of students in other institutions. It would certainly be worthwhile for institutions and individual academics to develop strategies to maximise the potential of these types of resources.
I don't see irresolvable problems with students being able to take use these types of courses in the context of a normal set of modules leading to a qualification. In some areas, these could eventually be the lecture content with the lecturer being freed up to offer advanced tuition to the student, guidance on projects and so on, and also free some resources for the universities to develop their own specialised modules.
There would obviously be issues to resolve in terms of pricing, quality control and salary and so on, but to view resources like these as a threat would be a negative view.
http://academicearth.org/
I don't see irresolvable problems with students being able to take use these types of courses in the context of a normal set of modules leading to a qualification. In some areas, these could eventually be the lecture content with the lecturer being freed up to offer advanced tuition to the student, guidance on projects and so on, and also free some resources for the universities to develop their own specialised modules.
There would obviously be issues to resolve in terms of pricing, quality control and salary and so on, but to view resources like these as a threat would be a negative view.
http://academicearth.org/
Sunday, February 08, 2009
MIT OpenCourseWare
I've posted before on these but it cant be said often enough that MIT deserve huge credit for developing this initiative - an absolute treasure trove. Every university in the world should look to ways that people outside the institution can benefit to some extent from what goes on inside. I know there are arguments to the contrary (why should people who havent paid to attend get benefits and so on) but I dont find any of the arguments very convincing particularly in light of the mandate of most universities to benefit the wider society and promote the dissemination of knowledge.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
Friday, April 06, 2007
Free lecture notes!
This is a great site for sets of lecture notes.You need never write a new course again
http://www.econphd.net/notes.htm
http://www.econphd.net/notes.htm
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