Kate Hawkesby: How to get uni students back in lectures? When students find an easy way out, they’ll take it

I see universities are asking students to come back to lectures in person because the low attendance is apparently ‘demoralising’ staff. 

Covid lockdowns and closures saw more classes go online and as it turns out, many find that preferable to having to rock up in person. It is also no doubt a contributing factor to our truancy levels at school. 

Once you stop something and let students know it’s OK to pause it, or to do it remotely, then guess what - they’re going to take that and run with it. 

The reasons for not showing up to lectures I can imagine are similar to the reasons we skipped lectures back in my day. Sometimes just getting to uni is a hassle with traffic, public transport (if you’re in Auckland especially), weather, sickness, lack of parking, lack of bus services, and probably also lack of interest.

I mean why trek all the way in if you don’t have to? 

If you can have it beamed into your bedroom in the comfort of your own home, why wouldn’t you? 

Obviously we didn’t have that option when I was at uni, so if you skipped a lecture you did miss it entirely and would have to catch up. It was often easier to go in person and soak up the environment, get work done in the library, see your mates and ask the lecturer any questions afterwards.

But I’m not convinced that had we had the option of just viewing it virtually, that we wouldn’t have taken it.

So, how to get students back? 

Apparently attendance is so dire that it was reported in Wellington ‘earlier this year, a bookshop and café on Victoria University's Kelburn campus’ closed.  

That sort of emptiness is contagious, students and young people have a pack mentality. If you’re one of only a handful turning up to a lecture, then you’re going to wonder why you bothered. One report said some students felt ‘sitting in near empty lecture theatres could be awkward.’ 

Then there’s the argument put by Vic Uni’s Student Association president that a lecture is such a passive experience, that it’s actually better off served up as a recording that students can watch at their own pace in their own time anyway. So what's right here? 

Well I feel for the lecturers going to the trouble of preparing a lecture, turning up with it to a theatre of 400 seats, and only 50 students turn up. That must feel deflating. Should they take it personally though? I wouldn’t have thought so. 

If you’re going to offer something online that’s easier for people, then they’re probably going to take that option, irrespective of how fantastic your lecture may be. Likewise, I doubt high school teachers take truancy levels personally. 

The ultimate decider is the results though. Does it have a positive or negative impact on student’s results?

One lecturer said the problem with viewing lectures online was students who waited ‘until the end of the semester and then jammed as many recordings as they could in before the exam.” He said of his students, the ’15 who got A-plus grades for his course all attended lectures in person.’ So the proof could be in the pudding.

How does this one resolve itself? Time will tell but my hunch is that when students find an easy way out, they’ll take it.

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