IU Southeast SoTL Conference - Session 2, Meeting #3: Student Preference and Performance: Can Audio Content Like Podcasts Stand-In for Traditional Print Reading Assignments?
Dr. Jamie Oslawski-Lopez, Indiana University Kokomo Dr. Gregory Kordsmeier, Indiana University Southeast
Many sociology instructors are integrating audio content like podcasts as assignments. For instance, a quick review of the TRAILS database reveals instructors’ incorporation of podcasts from Planet Money (King 2017), Sawbones (Kordsmeier 2016), and This American Life (Ramirez 2013) among others (Lotspeich 2011). This turn to audio content as “reading” raises many questions. For one, given the option of both audio and print content, which do students prefer and why? Further, how does exam performance differ by chosen “reading” format? To investigate these questions, we assigned two podcasts and provided each in audio and print / transcript formats in two sections of Introduction to Sociology. In our presentation, we will discuss preliminary results of a short survey about students’ reading preferences as well as correlations between chosen “reading” format and exam performance
