ENHANCED PODCASTING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY IN THE BIOSCIENCES

This paper presents an exploratory study in which enhanced podcasts were used to replace traditional lectures for on-campus students taking an advanced bioscience course at the University of Sussex (UK). An enhanced podcast is a multimedia file format in which images can be displayed in time with the audio content. Previous studies have evaluated the use of podcasts to supplement traditional lectures, but few have evaluated the effect of using podcasts to replace lectures outside the remit of distance learning. The current paper addresses this and evaluates how the change in pedagogy affected the students’ motivation for learning and their learning experience as a whole.

The 10-week bioscience course was taken by a cohort of 19 students, which included final year BSc undergraduates and postgraduates on MSc programmes. For each of the lecture topics, enhanced podcasts were pre-recorded and made available via the universities’ virtual learning environment. For each topic there was an online activity that formed part of the summative assessment. The student experience was evaluated using two methods: (a) student questionnaires and (b) analysis of file access on the university’s virtual learning environment.

The study showed that the students valued the flexibility the enhanced podcasts provided. The podcasts could be viewed at anytime, both on and off campus, and this enabled students to fit study around paid work and other commitments. In addition the students valued the novelty of the approach, and the opportunity to gain new technology skills. However, some students perceived that replacing lectures with enhanced podcasts had a negative affect on student-lecturer interactions, and were worried about the effect it might have on their own motivation. The study highlighted the need to align the assessment with the pedagogical delivery method. The study clearly showed that students accessed the enhanced podcasts in order to complete the summative assessments each week. Hence the web-based activities were an essential component of extrinsic student motivation.

This study highlights the potential of using enhanced podcasts to replace traditional lectures in a higher education environment. By aligning the summative assessment with the pedagogical delivery method, enhanced podcasts can be used to create flexible courses that enhance the student learning experience and potentially widen student participation.