Lecture recordings in everyday study practice

School: Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Team Members: Eva Murzyn (and Kasia Banas, University of Glasgow.)

Abstract

The University of Edinburgh has committed to a lecture recording policy that facilitates recording all lectures by default. The students have welcome this development, praising the benefits it offers to those who need to miss lectures due to ill health, care responsibilities, or schedule clashes. However, the University does not currently offer students any in-depth guidance on the best practices in using lecture recordings, and we do not provide study skills support to help ingrain good habits in utilising lecture recordings for revision and catch-up. Also, the literature on the effects of lecture recording, while growing, does not typically situate the use of recordings in the wider learning practice.

Building on previous work from Edinburgh and other institutions, we propose to:

(1) examine the way that students currently use lecture recordings in their everyday study practice (i.e. baseline use);

(2) create a practical exercise designed to teach students about the most effective way to use of lecture recording, in the form or an interactive resource;

(3) following a period of piloting, embed the resource into the Study Skills strand in the first-year psychology curriculum (ca. 320 students enrolled); and

(4) evaluate the resource by gathering student feedback, and also by examining the use of lecture recordings and other study practices in the following year.

If the resource proves to be effective in improving study practices, it will be shared with colleagues in PPLS and the wider University community, for use with students across the University.