Student Performance in Televised Lectures

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the effect of televised lecture presentations on student performance in an engineering class. Three groups of students were involved in the experiment. One group received the live lecture, the second group received the same lecture on television transmitted live to an adjacent classroom, and the third group saw the lecture two hours later on videotape. A questionnaire was distributed weekly to assess student reaction to the project and common tests were administered. The results revealed that there was no difference in student performance as measured by four common one hour examinations and a three hour final. Although there was a slight preference for live lectures, 70 percent of the students indicated they would take another course taught primarily through television.