We often discuss teaching and learning formats, and now there is a nice study that compares face-to-face, synchronous online, and asynchronous online in the same introductory physics course: Both stated student preferences at the beginning of the semester, what they actually end up doing, and what they think benefits and pitfalls are. Very interesting!
Before the course starts, 70% of 160ish students state that they prefer face-to-face learning (which 31% still say at the end of the semester). 17% said they would prefer a combination of face-to-face and zoom, and this increases to 26% at the end of the semester. Face-to-face and recordings was the stated preference of 5% before, and factual preference of 20% after. And a combination of all learning formats was preferred by 6% before and 24% afterwards!
Why did students’ stated preference not agree with what they ended up doing? When asked about benefits and pitfalls of the three formats before and after in an open question, the was clearly learning going on. For example, for face-to-face learning, after trying the different formats, more students mention the increased concentration and decreased distractions, as well as the “educational atmosphere”. More students also appreciate better understanding in face-to-face settings. And the biggest absolute change in mentions is that after the fact students are very aware of the missing flexibility in terms of time and space. Likewise, after the experience, students really appreciate the reduced travel time and time and space flexibility of the other two formats. Also many students mention what gets summed up as “health benefits” (e.g. not having to leave the house and run the risk of covid-19 infections). Students become more aware that a potential pitfall and other side of the flexibility-coin of learning from recordings is the required self-discipline, but for synchronous zoom meetings, the concerns that students mentioned before trying, mostly related to decreased concentration and increased distractions, are about halved. In interviews, it becomes clear that students developed strategies to deal with different challenges, e.g. when attending asynchronously, studying with friends (even from different subjects) to benefit from peer pressure. Or to attend face-to-face when they feel that they need to catch up in their understanding, even though they would otherwise prefer to attend online or watch a recording. In this study, there is no investigation of the influence of format on student performance.
What I find most interesting here is how student preferences change over the course of this experience, and I think this article can be potentially very useful in discussions with students on benefits of attendance vs learning in other formats. Learning preferences are only that, and sometimes, once you put them to the test, they change…
Shlomo, A., & Rosenberg-Kima, R. B. (2024). F2F, zoom, or asynchronous learning? Higher education students’ preferences and perceived benefits and pitfalls. International Journal of Science Education, 1-26.