between 2 and 3 weeks worth of classes. Age was significantly different at the (p < 0.1) between the two groups – the younger students used the video streaming more than the older students. This would be in line with conventional wisdom (or perhaps stereotypical thinking) that younger people are more inclined to try new technologies or be more familiar and less fearful of the technology. Of course the difference in the ages, while statistically significant, was not of a large magnitude (such as a generational sized gap). Each group had exactly the same proportion of females (25%). Distribution of specific degree candidates is a little skewed, but hard to measure. It is worth noting that many of the M.S. in Telecommunications Management (MSTM) core classes are video streamed, thus the true variable of interest may not be degree, but whether students had previous exposure to video streaming. Table 1 notes that all but one student with prior video streaming experience was a “user”. Thus, there is evidence that having a stable video streaming technology in use at this university may be a critical component to the adoption of the technology. The impact on course quality showed that, in general, students felt that video streaming was a value-added process (3.9 average out of 5). Interestingly, 2 respondents found that the video streaming reduced the quality of the class (a score of “2” on the five point scale). This is especially interesting since the students all had easy accessibility to same time, same place content delivery and that they chose streaming under their own volition. Convenience, review for exams, and unclear lecture points were identified as major reasons why video streaming was used. Thus, as anecdotal wisdom has indicated, the “safety net” function of video streaming appears to be the most prevalent reason for on-campus student usage of video streaming. Perhaps the approximate 2–3 weeks of content is accessed during critical times of the semester when mid-terms are going on, or for the inevitable evenings when sitting in a class is not high on the priority list of the fairly young graduate student (especially Thursday nights!). It is a different kind of “convenience” that attracts non-traditional distance learners to the technology, as many of them have hectic travel schedules or logistic problems that the convenience of video streaming (and other technologies) helps them overcome. Interestingly, respondents stated that their use of video streaming was not due to the subject requiring little interaction in the class (recall that all agreed the class was primarily “lecture based”), nor did the users identify that they did not value class interaction highly. Perhaps the class material was new to most students and that the “ad-lib” Q & A sessions that took place were found to be valuable and hard to duplicate on streaming video. The second set of questions asked of the subjects focused on “Why did you (or would you) NOT use video streaming”. Three of these questions had significant differences between the adopters and non-adopters of the technology: guilt on skipping class, need class interaction for learning, and inconvenience of internet connectivity. It is extremely interesting to note that those who used the technology indicated they possessed higher guilt for skipping class than did those who did not use video streaming
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 13:39:05 +0000
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