JAPAN

Students prefer faster pace in online lectures – Survey

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only pushed university students online, but it could also be changing teaching methods for the better, writes Tetsuhiro Toyoshima for The Asahi Shimbun.

Kindai University in Osaka Prefecture in July 2022 conducted a survey on about 7,000 students of on-demand classes and received valid responses from about 1,200. Nearly half, or 48.5%, said they sped up the online recordings of the lectures. Specifically, 177, or 14.3%, said they watched the recordings at 1.25 times the normal speed, while 423, or 34.2%, said they sped up the videos by 1.5 times.

Catering to the growing trend toward speed among his students, Hisashi Ogawa, an associate professor at Hyogo University of Teacher Education in Hyogo Prefecture, now speaks roughly 1.3 times faster than usual when he gives online classes. His 170 students prefer this teaching style, he said.
Full report on the Asahi Shimbun site