Lectures: electronic presentations versus chalk and talk – a chemist’s view.

Abstract

An extensive survey of undergraduate Chemistry lectures from years 1-4 during 2004- 2005 has been undertaken. They were categorised according to the method used for delivery, where category 1 used only electronic media to deliver courses, category 2 used a mixture of electronic and non-electronic and category 3 used non-electronic only. Analysis of student questionnaires, coupled with interviews with a selection of students and lecturers from each category, revealed that the impact of the method of lecture delivery is very slight indeed. Non- electronic methods were preferred, but the differences were not significant. The main problems identified with electronic presentations were: that too much material was covered, hard copies of the notes were not provided, the presentation contained particularly complicated diagrams or seemingly irrelevant images, and lectures were presented too quickly. In addition, it was observed that there was a tendency for lectures given using electronic media to have fewer (or no) breaks, natural or otherwise. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2007, 8 (1), 73-79]