Digital lecture recording: A cautionary tale

Amy N.B. Johnston, Helen Massa, Thomas H.J. Burne

Increasing application of information technology including web-based lectures and live-lecture recording appears to have many advantages for undergraduate nursing education. These include greater flexibility, opportunity for students to review content on demand and the improved academic management of increasing class sizes without significant increase in physical infrastructure. This study performed a quasi-experimental comparison between two groups of nursing students undertaking their first anatomy and physiology course, where one group was also provided access to streaming of recorded copies of the live lectures and the other did not. For the course in which recorded lectures were available student feedback indicated overwhelming support for such provision with 96% of students having accessed recorded lectures. There was only a weak relationship between access of recorded lectures and overall performance in the course. Interestingly, the nursing students who had access to the recorded lectures demonstrated significantly poorer overall academic performance (P < 0.001). Although this study did not specifically control for student demographics or other academic input, the data suggests that provision of recorded lectures requires improved and applied time management practices by students and caution on the part of the academic staff involved.