Peter Sutherland
How are lectures perceived by lecturers and students in adult learning? An intercultural perspective from Scotland and Australia.
Peter Sutherland
Institute of Education, University of Stirling, Scotland
Paper presented at the 36th Annual SCUTREA Conference, 4-6 July 2006, Trinity and All Saints College, Leeds
Introduction
Half way through the first decade of the twenty-first century the lecture is at a stage of transition. On the one hand there is the traditional medieval lecture where the lecturer expounds orally on their specialist subject. On the other hand modern electronic technology could be said to make the traditional lecture redundant. It can now be fully replaced by e-learning or partially replaced by websites, DVDs, videos, etc.
This research has investigated what both lecturers and adult students perceived the function of lectures to be. It is an exploratory study into a basic adult education format which may or may not be changing fast at the present time. The empirical work was carried out in two countries: Scotland and Australia. From the results an intercultural comparison is made.
Methodology
In order to obtain quantitative data a cohort of 90 1st year adult students in Scotland were given a Likert-type questionnaire (Appendix 1) to which a number of open-ended questions were added. The students were studying Education.
In order to obtain qualitative data lecturers in both countries were interviewed using a semi-structured schedule (Appendix 2). In Australia fifteen lecturers were interviewed at three different universities:
1. The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane.
2. The University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
Both of these have a special mission to cater for the needs of adult students who did not attend university at the traditional age.
3. The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Toowoomba.
This specialises in adult education, taught by distance education. The nearest university to the west lies 1,800 miles across the bush in Darwin.
In order to obtain the students’ perceptions a number of adult students were interviewed, using the same semi-structured interview schedule. At present it has only been possible to interview students in Scotland, and not yet in Australia.
The theoretical paradigm used for this project was Trigwell and Prosser‘s (2004) polarity between Information transmission/Teacher-focused (ITTF) versus Conceptual change/Student-focused (CCSF) approaches.
Results: Lecturers’ Perspectives
Case Studies from Australia:
A. An Interacter
Lecturer A lectured to mature students who were at least 21 years old, but who were mainly in their 30s and 40s. She believed in minimising the lecture element. 20 minutes was her maximum and even this was largely interactive. She did not want the students to take notes. Her emphasis was on group work. She normally set the students problems to work on.
B. A Believer in the Efficacy of Lecturing.
In contrast with Lecturer A, Lecturer B totally rejected the andragogy of Knowles (1982) and the self-directed learning of Brookfield (1986). He believed passionately in the traditional lecture. For example he delivered lectures to classes of about 30 adult students such as plumbers, welders and police persons. He divided the 3 hours up into 2 one hour, twenty minute lectures with a twenty minute break in the middle. He believed that adult students, in the lectures they receive, want structure above all else.
C. Using the Mobile Phone for Lectures
A radical thinker on lecturing was Lecturer C at USQ. She argued that in 40 years’ time the face-to-face lecture will no longer exist. The only adult education available will be by distance education. This will be offered by a number of institutions around the world 24 hours a day simultaneously. The main teaching tool will be the computer. This will resemble the current mobile phone. Teaching and learning will be a dialogue carried out by text. The cost of these computers will be comparable with that of disposable cameras today.
Lecturer C also had radical views on how students acquire knowledge. This would be co-constructed by the lecturer and the students. The lecturer would normally have the responsibility for initiating, scaffolding and facilitating this process. Instead of providing content (except to write bite-sized units of knowledge) the lecturer would present challenging ideas to their students and expect them to argue back at the same level. Lecturer C admits that this is a high risk teaching method. However, it has proved successful at Masters level. Nevertheless it is doubtful whether traditional adult students will be able to adjust to it in their first year of undergraduate study.
D The Pastoral role: The Lecturer as a Developer of Character
This is perhaps an old fashioned model for the 21st Century, derived from the English public school tradition. Not surprisingly Lecturer D was at the end of his career. He believed that sincerity is crucial. The values of the lecture must become the values of the students. The lecturer should not be just a transmitter of knowledge to their students. They should also be a role model for them. He regarded the prime role of a lecturer as helping adult students to mature. This applied particularly those who have entered university with very weak academic skills.
In order to fulfil this role he needed to know his students individually by teaching them himself (rather than as a team) over the whole academic year. He adopted the very Australian attitude of offering his students a ”fair go” at the outset. In other words, he knew nothing about them and he encouraged them to make a positive impression on him.
In Scotland
The perceptions of lecturers at a Scottish university were found by Sutherland and Badger (2004) to lie on a spectrum. Those lecturers teaching more traditional subjects such as History preferred the traditional exposition method. Those teaching more modern subjects had, on the whole, more belief in high technology methods. For instance, a lecturer in Entrepeneurial Studies believed that, instead of a member of staff giving a particular lecture, a DVD or video of the world expert on that topic should be relayed to the students.
Students’ perspectives
Adult student perceptions of the lecture have been investigated in Scotland (but not yet in Australia) by Sutherland (2006).
1. Quantitative
When the data were analysed, it was revealed that the majority of the students still wanted to use the lecture in order to receive information, whether orally or written. To aid this process the students wanted to be given handouts. However the information was not just received passively.
Around 81% claimed to have evaluated the lecturer’s input. It may be gratifying to teachers to be told that 71% stated that they would still attend lectures even if there was no subsequent assessment. However, it is less satisfactory for teachers to be told that 51% did not think there were sufficient opportunities to ask the lecturers questions. At least 71% wanted challenging rather than just easy lectures. In answer to an open-ended question on the disadvantages of lectures 51% found lectures boring. This may not be a surprising finding, but it is a challenge which teachers need to respond to.
2. Qualitative
A number of adult students have been interviewed by means of a semi-structured schedule (Appendix 2).
Case study of an adult student
Fiona was a case study of particular interest. Professionally she organised and taught in an adult literacy centre. She was perceived by the researcher to be a highly motivated adult learner. At the age of 50 she valued her opportunity to receive the higher education which had been denied to her by family circumstances when she was 18-22. She was perceived by the researcher to be – to use the ideas of Marton-Entwistle (1997) - a deep-strategic learner. Her responses to being interviewed indicated that she was instrumental in what she wanted from lectures. First and foremost she wanted information and suggestions for further reading to help her with the subsequent essay or exam. Fiona valued being able to receive handouts of the Power Point slides in advance of the lecture so that she could add her own notes during the lecture. She did not particularly want high technology replacements for or supplements to the traditional lecture. However she did find videos or DVDs very useful in History to illustrate material which were quite new to her.
Case study of a course
A teaching method of particular relevance is that being used on a 1st year Mechanical Engineering course at a Scottish university. This is taught interactively. Each student has a key pad. As the lecturer proceeds through a topic, they can ask multiple choice questions in the class in order to see whether the majority of the students have understood that section. The results are instantly computed for lecturers so that they get immediate feedback as to whether to explain that section more fully (i.e. to do some scaffolding and remedial teaching) or whether they can move on to the next topic. The lecturers can then provide instant formative feedback to the students. In principle this technology also allows the students to ask the lecturers questions electronically during or after the lecture.
How lectures can be supported for the benefit of adult learners
Innovations in lectures in Australia included:
1. QUT was designing a new experimental lecture theatre modelled on the stage. Therefore, atmosphere and lighting effects are built into the design. Attending a lecture should be an exciting experience similar to watching a play. However a difference is that the students will be active rather than passive. They will have laptops with which to communicate with the lecturers.
2. Business Studies students run a simulated company online after the lectures.
Problems with lectures
In the Australian context a number of widespread issues were evident:
1. Students ‘texting’ each other during lectures.
2. Low attention span by the end of a 2 or 3 hour lecture. This is not surprising in view of the widespread finding in psychological research that most adults have an attention span of 20 to 30 minutes.
3. Plagiarism in the written work produced.
The intercultural perspective
When the Australian findings were compared with the Scottish ones, several interesting intercultural differences were indicated. Lecturers in Australia were more likely to value high technology in lectures, for example, interactive lectures where the adult students respond on their keypads, teleconferencing to remote adult education campuses, etc. Lecturers in Scotland were more likely to favour a traditional lecture.
Overall the data has indicated a similar Information transmission/teacher-focused culture in both Australia and Scotland. This was disappointing.
Questions requiring further research
As Hartley (2003) has reported, few studies of how students actually use modern technology have yet been completed. Therefore a number of questions requiring further research remain:
1. Which form of technology is more effective for adult students - old technology e.g. printed texts or new technology e.g. online teaching and learning? There is some doubt whether e-learning is suitable for adult students, especially when they first return to education after a long break (unless they have been working with computers). This could be measured by a controlled experiment.
2. Should the mobile phone replace the lecture as Lecturer C claims? How can the mobile phone be made into an effective form of interactive ‘texting’ for academic purposes?
3. Should key pads be issued to all adult students attending lectures?
4. Should laptop computer be issued to all adult students to help them to take notes in a similar way as secretaries do at meetings?
5. Which is the best form of learning support for adult students to enable them to learn more effectively from lectures:
· referring themselves to a study skills adviser?
· having a learning support teacher alongside them in the lecture theatre to help them take notes during lectures?
· being given a laptop so as to be able to spell-check and grammar-check their notes?
Conclusions and implications for adult education
The lecturers in Australia were on the whole more positive towards technological innovation. The idea of key pads for adult students seems very promising. This will give the lecturer more possibilities to be interactive. This is what adult students need. This will give them opportunities to contribute their experiential learning (Kolb,1984)to the class and to query points which they did not understand as well as to disagree with the lecturer.
Lecturers at the Australian universities visited were also – on the whole - more aware of the needs of adult students than their Scottish counterparts. This may have something to do with the geography of the two countries. In higher education terms those adult students in Australia who do not live near the big conurbations tend to be even more isolated than their Scottish counterparts. The University of the Highlands and Islands is being established to cater for the higher education needs of such Scottish students.
References
Brookfield, S. (1986) Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning. Milton Keynes, Open University Press.
Entwistle, N. (1997) “Contrasting perspectives on learning” in Marton, F. et al (eds) The Experience of Learning (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.
Hartley, J. (2002) “Studying for the future” Journal of Further and Higher Education, 26, 3, pp. 207-227
Knowles, M. (1982) The Modern Practice of Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy (2nd ed.). New York, Cambridge Books.
Kolb, D. (1984) Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Sutherland, P. and Badger, R (2004) ”Lecturers’ Perception of Lectures” Journal of Further and Higher Education 28, 2, pp.277-289.
Sutherland , P. (2006) “Students perceptions of lectures” (in press).
Trigwell, K. and Prosser ,M. (2004) “Developments and uses of Approaches to Teaching Inventory” Educational Psychology Review, 16, pp.409-426.
Appendix 1
Questionnaire about a lecture
This questionnaire is a part of some research to find out your views of a particular lecture. Most of the items can be answered with a tick. We need your registration number in case you complete two questionnaires and we need to compare them.
1.
/Your registration number
/ / / / / / /2.
/Main degree subject(s)
/3.
/Year of study
/4.
/Name & code of this unit
/5. / How old are you?
6. / What percentage of lectures do you attend?
Which of the following were used in the lecture you have just attended?