Making Large Classes Small(er): Assessing the Effectiveness Of a Hybrid Teaching Technology Making Large Classes Small(er): Assessing the Effectiveness Of a Hybrid Teaching Technology Making Large Classes Small(er): Assessing the Effectiveness Of a Hybrid

Abstract

This paper examines learning outcomes in a one-semester introductory microeconomics course where contact time with the instructor was reduced by two-thirds and students were expected to view pre-recorded lectures on-line and come to class prepared to engage in discussion. Students were pre-and post-tested using the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE -4). Learning outcomes as measured by the change in test scores are found to be as good as or better than calibrating data for groups assessed using the TUCE -4. In addition to being a more enjoyable course for the instructor, the course design can be part of a more self-directed curriculum that uses available resources more efficiently to achieve similar learning objectives to a lecture-based introductory course. financial constraints on institutions of higher learning provide impetus for renewing the commitment to working smarter with instructional resources. For five decades, technology has been utilized in economics to help manage and/or deliver the course Every new technology expands the hope for improved learning results. Privateer (1999) argues that teaching technologies must be deployed with a view to their efficacy in fostering learning, and not merely their value in managing the course or large class numbers (see also The current paper looks at using technology as a way to free up classroom contact time for more productive teaching and learning activities. Lectures were pre-recorded using screencapture software and were made available for students to view before coming to class. As Privateer (1999, 69) suggests, recording lectures for students to view before coming to class automates the knowledge and comprehension parts of the learning objectives, freeing the instructor to change from reproduction activities to invention and intelligence-driven instructional technologies in the class time that is available. Any new technology must be expected to enhance student learning before being implemented, and the research in this paper is an exercise in quantifying that prior belief for this particular intervention in introductory microeconomics. The paper is organized as follows: the next section provides a brief review of the literature on technology, class size and hybrid instructional models. After that, the learning 3 context and the intervention are described. The learning outcomes measurement instrument being used in this study is the Test of Understanding in College Economics, fourth edition (TUCE -4, Walstad et al. 2007), augmented by some additional demographic questions. We next present the results of the empirical exercise, followed by a discussion of those results. Final observations about the hybrid teaching technology are presented in the conclusions. WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN LARGE INTRODUCTORY ECONOMICS CLASSES? Principles of economics, where most students receive their first exposure to the topic, is a place where effective resource use has strong payoffs. For most students, the principles course is their first exposure to the economic way of thinking (Siegfried et al. 1991, 21) Technology may be applied to leverage the economies of scale in course delivery as classes get larger, particularly in introductory course contexts. In addition, information technology could permit the class size to be substantially reduced as it does in the hybrid course being evaluated here. Raimondo et al. (1990, 371-372) cite numerous examples from the economics education literature of no significant difference in content knowledge performance (as measured by the TUCE) due to differences in class size, attributing this to the idea that only the lower-level cognitive skills of recall and comprehension are emphasized in introductory courses. More recently, Bedard and Kuhn (2008) find large and significant reduction of instructor effectiveness as reported in student evaluations of teaching, so clearly students notice some differences in the environment as class size increases, although instructor effectiveness is not the same as student performance. Tay (1994, 291) emphasizes a number of student-specific characteristics that are important to learning outcomes, particularly aptitude and effort. The works discussed so far tend to treat technology as substitute for lecturing, to "(make) the same course information available to a wide audience of information consumers" (Privateer 1999, 68). Creed (1997, 4) observes that technologies that improve presentation of material are not inherently organized around student learning. Some uses of technology may be at cross purposes with a learner-centered approach, even though applications of technology are often advocated as a way to improve learning. As Maki et al. (2000, 230) say so succinctly, " [t]here is no pedagogical rationale for teaching in the lecture format;" they advocate instead taking Barr and Tagg's (1995) advice to focus on the learning rather than the teaching that goes on. Barr and Tagg's learning paradigm justifies breaking away from habitual methods of teaching if the change can better support learning. The challenge, then, is to explore ways to capitalize on the special features of technology that can be harnessed to foster different and better learning (for example, Schwerdt and Wupperman 2011). By contrast