Intensive teaching modes: Benefits, drawbacks and directions forward

Background: Fourth year courses in the Australian School of Petroleum are taught in Intensive formats, with a semester's material presented over a several consecutive days. While intensive courses provide access and opportunity to non-traditional students needing to balance family, work and study (Curtis, 2000), they also offer economic and pragmatic benefits for universities. Specifically: off-shore delivery of 'badged' courses (Clark and Clark, 2000); outside experts to deliver on-campus courses (Burton and Nesbit, 2002); and blocks of 'uninterrupted' research time (Burton and Nesbit, 2002). For student outcomes, research indicates little detriment (for a review, see, Daniel, 2000). However, results are contaminated by selection bias. Specifically, intensive courses attract older, more motivated and better prepared students (Caskey, 1994; Christy, 1991; and Smith, 1988; all cited in Daniel, 2000. Thus, detrimental effects could be obscured by 'better' students. Purpose: Given increased use of intensive teaching, there is a need to identify any differences between delivery modes, including potential benefits and drawbacks, so as to inform engineering (and more general, university-wide) teaching practices and provide the best opportunities for student learning. Design/Method: Surveys were delivered to 44 current and past Australian School of Petroleum engineering students, who had all undertaken both semesterised and intensive courses, and 21 university staff. These elicited opinions regarding the two delivery methods - including time requirements, required reading, expected grades, learning and fatigue. Data was interpreted in light of analyses of student marks across their degree program to determine whether the methods produced equivalent outcomes. Results: Results from the student data show concerning trends; specifically they believe that intensive courses require less time to complete, encourage less reading and result in less learning but can earn them higher grades. While analysis of actual marks does not show a significant gain, the fact that staff also believe that students are learning less and that assessments differ between the two delivery formats raises concerns. Conclusions: While it may be possible for academics to deliver a course's material over a short period, it seems that students regard intensive courses as a short-cut and do less work than they would in a semesterised course. A secondary concern, arising from student's responses, is fatigue. It is well-known that fatigue undermines learning and performance (see, e.g., Kahol et al, 2008) and the fact that the majority of respondents felt fatigued and unable to concentrate at the end of an intensive course - when the most complex concepts are presented and overall integration is required - bodes ill for retention. While further research is needed, the extension of learning support mechanisms beyond the immediate teaching period seems a viable means of limiting adverse effects of intensive delivery. Given that economic and pragmatic pressures are likely to result in increased use of intensive teaching formats, we need to ensure that their use is not undermining student learning opportunities and outcomes; and understand any limitations so that these can, through appropriate curriculum design, be counteracted.