Skipping classes, particularly big lectures where an absence can go undetected, is a tradition among college undergraduates who party late or swap lecture notes with friends.
These days, professors are witnessing a spurt in absenteeism as an unintended consequence of adopting technologies originally envisioned as learning aids.
Last semester, Americ Azevedo’s “Introduction to Computers” class at the University of California-Berkeley featured some of the hottest options in educational technology.
By visiting the course’s Web sites, the 200 students could download audio recordings or watch digital videos of the lectures, as well as read the instructor’s lecture notes and participate in online discussions.
But there was one problem: So many of the undergraduates relied on the technology that at times only 20 or so showed up for class.
“It was demoralizing,” Azevedo said. “Getting students out of their media bubble to be here is getting progressively harder.”
Even as many academics embrace electronic innovations, others are pushing back. To deter no-shows, professors are reverting to low-tech tactics such as giving more surprise quizzes or slashing online offerings.
“Too much online instruction is a bad thing,” said Terre Allen, a communication studies scholar at California State University-Long Beach.
Last term, Allen posted extensive lecture notes online for her undergraduate course, “Language and Behavior.” One goal was to relieve students of the burden of scribbling notes, freeing them to focus on the lectures’ substance.
The result, Allen said, was that only about one-third of her 154 students showed up for most of the lectures. In the past, when Allen put less material online, 60 percent to 70 percent of students typically would attend.
Universities usually don’t compel undergraduates to show up at lectures that have class enrollment in the hundreds, or even lower their grades for poor attendance.
“This is one of the things that divide universities from high schools,” Allen said. “Students are expected to be personally responsible.”
Still, Allen said, to curb “the absentee approach to college,” she won’t put her lecture notes online this term.
Doug Suda, 19, a student in Azevedo’s UC-Berkeley class last semester, said he skipped about three-quarters of the lectures because of his off-campus job. At the end of the term, Suda crammed for the final exam by watching videos of the lectures over three days.
“If I hadn’t had that … I would have probably failed the class,” said Suda, who received a B-plus.
Kelly Rocca, an assistant professor of communication at St. John’s University in New York and one of the few scholars who has recently studied American college absenteeism, said she suspects that skipping class has reached an all-time high because of off-campus jobs and reliance on technology.
To combat ditching in her own classes, Rocca refuses to post notes online. With undergraduates, she said, “the more reasons you give them not to come to class, the less likely they are to come.”
Statistics on class-skipping are scarce. But a University of California-Los Angeles survey of freshmen at 142 schools found that 33 percent said they skipped occasionally. (The survey, conducted in the fall, also found that 43 percent were bored and 58 percent had fallen asleep in class.)
Other research supports the common-sense belief that skipping class hurts a student’s grades.
Lee Ohanian, a UCLA economics professor, said he notices that frequent skippers often “are the ones who are doing just enough to get by. The ones who are getting the As are in the front row at every lecture.”
Ohanian said “too much technology really leads to a passive learning environment” and spurs absenteeism. He has cut back on posting lecture materials online and now provides extensive notes only for the most complicated topics.
Despite concerns about absenteeism, schools increasingly are experimenting with ways to let students watch or listen to lectures on their computers or digital music players, such as Apple’s iPod. Last month, Harvard Medical School began “podcasting” lectures that its students can download onto digital music players, enabling them to study while they walk.
Likewise, the number of online, or “distance,” education programs – in which students don’t need to be in class – is growing.
Advocates of the new technologies say they give schools an effective, low-cost way to deliver instruction while freeing students to review material at their own pace. The online options also let students participate in discussions electronically and allow instructors the flexibility to make quick changes.
Azevedo, who last semester became the first UC-Berkeley instructor to teach a podcast course, said the virtual-classroom options help students work around scheduling conflicts.
But teaching experts say Internet-era instructors have to change tactics to combat in-class boredom and absenteeism. Azevedo said he is working to enliven his lectures with material and interaction that students can’t get on the audio or video versions; he wants to foster more discussion while using technology to relay basic information.
At Purdue University, which podcasts 150 courses, a few instructors coax students to attend by keeping some answers to upcoming test questions off their recorded lectures, said John Campbell, an associate vice president in charge of educational technology.
He finds irony in the no-show problem. Student absenteeism, said Campbell, amounts to undergraduates paying “a lot of money not to attend.”
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