Do You Know What Your Students Do with Your Lecture Recordings?

May 17, 2011

Pierre Gorissen

Fontys University of Applied Sciences

Twitter: @PeterMcAllister

Madison - Eindhoven

Quick show of hands…

How it all started for us..

Reports…

Viewers per slide

Viewers per slide

Viewers per slide

Research Questions

How do students use recorded lectures?- What do they say?

- What do they actually do?  

Which patterns are there in the reported and actual use of recorded lectures by students?

How can we better support the use of recorded lectures?

Recorded Lectures

Recorded Lectures

• Many• Long (45 min. Average)• Expensive to create

Our question was simple:

• How (when and why) do students use the recorded lectures for course C01?

Two step approach

#1 Let’s ask them:- Survey

- Interviews

#2 Measure their use:- Mediasite reports

- Log files

#1 Let’s ask them

• Survey in February 2010• 1,122 studenten (203 Fontys / 919 TU/e)• 7 courses (1 Fontys / 6 TU/e)• Response rate 46.1% (517 students)

• Follow up interviews (30 minutes) with 14 students

Main results

• Most students watch recordings at home;• No major technical problems;• They know where to find the recordings;• They would prefer for all courses to be

recorded.

Main results

Why do they watch:- Missed one or more lectures;

- Prepare for exams / improving test scores;

- Improve retention of lecture materials;

- Replacement for live attendance;

- Review the material after a lecture.

Main results

Reasons why not to watch:- Already attended the live lecture;

- No time;

- Didn’t feel I missed anything.

How much of a lecture do you watch?

Would students really lie?

Just asking is not enough!

• It is unlikely that students watch that much of a recording;

• The interviews do suggest that it may be true for some students (but how many?).

Two step approach

#1 Let’s ask them:- Survey

- Interviews

#2 Measure the use:- Mediasite reports

- Log files

Our question was simple:

• How (when and why) do students use the recorded lectures for course C01?

Mediasite

Mediasite

• Server Activity / Date for all recordings

Mediasite

• Total Views / Presentation for Course C01

Mediasite

• Presentation Summary for single recording

Our question apparently was not that simple!

• How (when and why) do students use the recorded lectures for course C01?

Server logs

Combine data

New problem/challenge:

• We had way to much data!• Were to start?

Step #1

Define what it is you are interested in:- Who:

- Students only

- Not: staff / researcher(s) / professors

- Not: anonymous users

- What:

- Recorded Lectures

- Not: public seminars / opening of academic year / graduation sessions / ….

Step #2

Define what it is you are interested in:- Learner Sessions

- What is a learner session?

- How long is a learner session?

Student Recording

Step #3

Clean your data!- Remove all those short learner sessions!

- Remove all recordings you’re not interested in!

- Remove all viewers you’re not interested in!

Now we are getting somewhere…

We now know..

When students watch

Why students watch (we think we do)

…how do they watch?

Heatmap

Student 1

Student 188

T = 45 minT = 0 min

Work in progress

• Log data does not contain much info about navigation through the Mediasite environment;

• Need more data, e.g. logs from LMS/VLE.

Take away points…

• Know what you want to know;• Combine data if available;• Don’t be afraid to throw out data;• Student centered approach needed; • Different students mean different use;• Different recordings mean different use.

Final comment from one of the interviews:

A recording of a bad lecturecan actually improve that

lecture...…the recording can be replayed at high speed!

P.Gorissen@fontys.nl

http://www.linkedin.com/in/PierreGorissen