“Students have been handed another excuse to skip class from an unusual quarter. New psychological research suggests that university students who download a podcast lecture achieve substantially higher exam results than those who attend the lecture in person,” Ewen Callaway reports for New Scientist.
“Podcasted lectures offer students the chance to replay difficult parts of a lecture and therefore take better notes, says Dani McKinney, a psychologist at the State University of New York in Fredonia, who led the study,” Callaway reports. “‘It isn’t so much that you have a podcast, it’s what you do with it,’ she says.”
“Launched less than two years ago, Apple’s iTunes university offers college lectures on everything from Proust to particle physics to students and the public. Some universities make their lectures available to all, while others restrict access to enrolled students,” Callaway reports. “Some professors even limit downloads to encourage class attendance, McKinney says.”
Full article here.
