Thanks, David

I enjoyed your blog (David's post - below - was back in June and I have been waiting for a moment to reply to it). I think it's a really good point to make that "'interactivity' is not necessarily engaging" ... because, of course, it suggests we question what 'interactivity' might 'really' mean for students. It's one of the words that often gets thrown around as an unquestioned 'good' - but key issues in relation to how engaged/committed/bored students feel (since the social and affective dimensions are always there in the 'classroom') are to do with power in the 'interactivity' and in the context, the lab or lecture theatre ... engagement does require commitment and I guess some struggle is inevitable in how that is developed ... the overused phrase 'hearts and minds' comes to mind! What do students really mean when they say they are bored?

I guess teachers sometimes feel like parents where they need to persuade/encourage/cajole their students to do things which are challenging/tedious/scary at the time, but which we 'know' once slogged through will yield learning, in the form of knowledge and or/skills ... and allow advancement/progress. 

I'm sure plenty of lectures in HE do get tedious through misuse of PowerPoint .. in such cases it's the quality of the interaction that needs to change ... my hope is that ongoingly (ughghg, sorry!) getting the power issues out in the open and sharing them as much as possible with students, will build motivation towards learning, and help render the potentially challenging/tedious/scary, as inviting/exciting as possible. We won't ever banish 'boredom' though will we? What do students 'really' mean when they say they are bored? Another highly complex notion to explore!

John 


-----Original Message-----
From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Hardman
Sent: 19 June 2009 13:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: interactivity is not necessarily engaging

A new study by Sandi Mann and Andrew Robinson has found that certain types
of interactive class (labs and computer classes) were top of students'
boredom ratings - ahead of lectures.

For lectures specifically, use of PowerPoint was correlated with level of
boredom.

In relation to the recent discussion here about doodling, this was most
frequently adopted by the most boredom prone students who, in turn, were
most likely to skip class.

The full reference is: Mann, S., and Robinson, A. (2009). Boredom in the
lecture theatre: an investigation into the contributors, moderators and
outcomes of boredom amongst university students. British Educational
Research Journal, 35 (2), 243-258.

There is a summary on my blog at: http://tinyurl.com/l8paoz

David


-- 
Dr David Hardman
Principal Lecturer in Learning Development

Associate Editor, Journal of Economic Psychology

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