Lecture-Recordings: A solution for students of psychology as a minor subject?

Abstract

Students of psychology as a minor subject often face the problem that they cannot attend psychology lectures as they coincide with courses in their major field of studies. A solution for these students might be lecture- recordings. In two field experiments, students’ learning outcome in live- lectures and low-effort lecture-recordings did not differ. In experiment 1 students were able to choose whether they attended the live-lecture or watched the lecture-recording. Though fewer students than usually attended the live-lecture, the results show that also students who do not attend class regularly could be reached by the lecture-recording. In experiment 2 students were randomly assigned to the groups. As a result, many students did not behave cooperatively. Taking the comparable learning outcome in a low- effort lecture-recording and the result concerning students’ participation into account, we encourage teachers to use lecture-recordings and, therefore, give their students the chance to choose between live-lecture and recording.

Keywords

• Lecture-recordings
• Motivation
• Learning Outcome
• Learning Intensity