Study: iTunes U Better than Real College
7:48 am, February 20th, 2009, Nicole Martinelli
A small study indicates that students who listened to podcasts remembered more than those who attended lectures.
The study, as reported in New Scientist, tested 64 students on information retention.
To see how much students can learn from podcast lectures alone, students were given a single lecture on visual perception from an intro psychology course.
Half sat through a live lecture and were given printouts of the slides used. The other 32 downloaded a podcast that included audio from the same lecture synchronized with video of the slides. These students also received a printed handout of the material.
A week later, all were tested on the material. Students who downloaded the lecture at least passed the test, with C averages (71 out of 100), while the students who sat through the  lecture averaged Ds (62). The grade gap widened (77 out of 100) if the students who listened to podcasts took notes and lessened if they did not.
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.
“It isn’t so much that you have a podcast, it’s what you do with it,” she says.
A strong argument for taking advantage of iTunes U.
Via MacDaily News
Posted by Nicole Martinelli in iTunes | Comment on this article
I’m not sure one study of 64 people demonstrates that iTunes U is better than ‘real college’ as the title states. (It’s a good title that grabs attention, but is far from what is presented in the article.)
I’d like to see the same type of study done with a semester’s worth of material. My guess is that if you put the 32 that actually took the class vs. the 32 that just listened to the podcast you’d see those in the class retain much more of the material. If someone listening to the podcast doesn’t understand something because of the way a professor states it, no matter how many times it is repeated the student still won’t understand. However, those in the classroom have the advantage of asking the professor to clarify during lecture, ask before or after another lecture, or meet the professor during office hours. In addition, those in the class have the motivation to pay attention throughout an entire semester because they paid for the course and didn’t just download it off the internet. We don’t often care about things that are free for very long (as another article on this website indicates concerning free iPhone apps).
I think this study is initially interesting, but until it’s repeated with much larger numbers over a much longer time, we can hardly conclude that “iTunes U [is] Better than Real College.”
Paul F., on February 20th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Although I do have problems with title of the article, I have to disagree with part of Paul F. comment. When was the last time you attended a college class? Classrooms are filled with “students” who could careless about learning. If I had to make an educated guess based on mine and my wife’s experience half the people in college are just wasting theirs, their parents or tax payer money. At least the people downloading classes with iTunes U have an interest in learning. Also, although the professors are a very important part of the class, the student is the one who makes the decision to learn or not.
Bobby, on February 21st, 2009 at 8:58 am
Jobs is a liberator intent on freeing access to mass interest items to the masses as in music listening and music making, watching movies and making your own, reading e-books (unfolding now) and writing your own, and so why not free up access to the best education resources. Good tuition captured clearly on video and combined with course material has got to be the way forward for mass education. To any good teachers out there, become a class act education content creator before you have to fight to keep your job.
What Stanford realises is that it, and other centres of learning HAVE to embrace the web or simply fade away. Look at the world of papers and magazines to see what can happen if you put your head in the sand and pray for the web to just ‘go away’.
chano, on April 8th, 2009 at 7:58 am