Abstract:

Many colleges and universities are challenged to support students who are at-risk of failing mandatory mathematics courses (Cox, 2015). The use of video-podcasts is a promising strategy for providing support within a flipped-classroom environment (Kay, 2012). However, limited research has been conducted on how to design effective video podcasts to support learning (Kay, 2014). The purpose of the current study was to design and evaluate the impact of video podcasts in supporting first-year university mathematics students, particularly those at-risk of failing. Research-based principles outlined by Kay (2014) guided the design of the video podcasts. Twenty-eight videos were created for a first-year mathematics course in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology. Half of the 68 students enrolled in the course had failed the course at least once; while the other half were new students in the program. The combination of videos and a flipped classroom approach resulted in 62 out of 68 students (91%) passing the course with a mean grade of 76% which includes 4 students that failed the course because they did not write all of the examinations. An end-of-course survey indicated that over 80% of students rated the videos as helpful or very helpful, with a mean score of 4.3 on a 5-point Likert scale. The student comments to the open-ended questions were consistent with the video helpfulness ratings. Students who indicated that they were worried about whether they would be successful at the beginning of the course rated video podcasts significantly more helpful (M=4.5, SD=0.7) than students who were more confident about their success in the course (M=3.7, SD=1.0). A more detailed analysis, perhaps in the form of interviews or think-aloud protocols, is recommended for future research to determine the specific qualities of video podcasts that help or hinder student learning.

References:
[1] Cox, R. (2015). “You’ve Got to Learn the Rules”: A classroom-level look at low pass rates in developmental math. Community College Review, 43(3), 264–286
[2] Kay, R. H. (2012). Exploring the use of video podcasts in education: A comprehensive review of the literature. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(3), 820-831. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.01.011
[3] Kay, R. H. (2014). Developing a framework to create effective problem-based video podcasts. International Journal of Emerging Technologies, 9(1), 22-30.

Keywords:

Video podcasts, undergraduate students at-risk, mathematics, flipped classroom.