BCM 212 Reflection

This research report has given me a great insight into how other students think and feel about online lectures. It has always been normal for me and I have personally struggled with keeping on top of the lectures as being online they can be easily forgotten and not highly prioritised.

I believe I found what I expected in my research. I expected students to struggle with online lectures in terms of being distracted, whilst still appreciating the convenience of it. I did not expect that students would still mostly prefer online lectures to in-person if they were offered. I expected students to select in-person lectures if they were available. Based on my readings and own research, I was able to determine that students place a high value on flexibility and convenience with their studies, as they would choose a more convenient platform to learn lecture content than a potentially more effective in-person lecture.

I believe that after having to learn so much of their degrees online, as students we have almost become forced to appreciate the features and affordances of technology such as moodle, zoom and echo360. I have found that students are so easily distracted because of technology. In the survey, I asked students how they limit their distractions and nearly all the responses were related to social media and mobiles. Technology has improved the way we learn and provided many students to learn despite distance however it has created online learning so difficult as students have now more opportunities to procrastinate.

If I were to continue this topic I would like to learn how online lectures or learning in general affected students’ academic performance, patterns in marks and academic considerations. The research communicated that students just need to hold themselves accountable for their learning and acknowledge the need for self-disciple now more than ever. Also, I believe University lecturers would reflect on how they are communicating online, and possibly make a few adjustments to their teaching methods to increase engagement.

Overall, I believe I had good time management on this assessment. However, if I was to do this assessment again I believe I would have conducted more background research prior to designing my interview and questionnaire questions to gain more insightful responses from the students involved. This assessment was well thought out and planned by the University, and the time spent in the tutorials was very beneficial. The only suggestion I would make would be for there to be a time in the tutorials where students would be asked to spend time answering more people’s questionnaires as this would have allowed me to gain more responses and have a deeper understanding of the topic.