Time Out: Lecture Timings and Lecture Effectiveness

Business Research Methods

Kartik Pande, Juanita Thota, Subadra Sudhir and Radhika Khetan

December 5th, 2018

FLAME University
 Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary
1.1. Objective
1.2. Results
1.3. Conclusion
1.4. Recommendation
2. Statement of Problem
3. Introduction
4. Objective
5. Methodology and Data Collection
6. Results
7. Analysis
7.1. Student
7.2. Faculty
7.3. Administration
7.4. Overall
8. Limitations
9. Conclusion
10. Recommendation
11. Acknowledgements
12. Appendix
12.1. Transcription
1. Executive Summary

1.1 Objective: To understand the relationship between the duration of a class and the
effectiveness of the same with regard to absorption of content taught in the class and their
effect on one another.

1.2 Results: Out of our sample size, 85% agreed to be susceptible to losing concentration.
Whereas, 15%, all of which were faculty, denied getting distracted easily. In our analysis,
we observed that students weren't able to absorb the lectures lasting longer than 2 hours
and are getting half the knowledge imparted in the class. A total of 80% responded
prefered 1-hour lectures 3 times a week over 3-hours in a go. This ties that the time
duration of a lecture may be a cause in changing the effectiveness of the delivery of the
lectures.

1.3 Conclusion: From this study, we achieve that a greater part of our sample size
consisting of students and teachers lose concentration during teaching-learning activities.
The Program office plans classes differently because of course clashes and professor
unavailability.

1.4 Recommendation: After conducting this study, it is suggested that long addressed
lectures should have breaks, group discussion or other learning activities which helps
increase the attention span of students.  

2. Statement of problem

A study to assess the relationship between the timing of a class and its effectiveness in FLAME
University, Pune.
3. Introduction

This report attempts to understand the relation, if any, between two seemingly related variables.
With the variety of class schedules between students, it seemed strange as to how there was a
difference in experience of classes. Certain students having continuous classes of the same
course for 3 hours at a stretch whilst others were studying one particular subject for only an hour
at a stretch.

The seeming dissonance about the experiences between these groups led to the conversation
about the success in the delivery of the lectures and the content. There was discourse about the
consistency in the quality and effectiveness of the lectures dispensed and how the time difference
effects them and also why they were structured in the manner they were, and whether this could
be amended.

Thus, we attempted to create a study to understand this relation and the impacts of it. To do so,
we analyzed the stakeholders in this. The resulting answer came to be the students, the faculty
and the administration which is allocating these timings. The separate perspectives were to
provide a multifold insight into the topic of research. Through these stakeholders, we received
feedback, opinions and input to fully understand the relation between these variables.

Through the processes of collection, analysis, interpretation and extrapolation, the following is
the methodology used and the data and results that were uncovered.

4. Objective

To understand the relationship between the duration of a class and the effectiveness of the same
with regard to absorption of content taught in the class and their effect on one another.

Sub Objective:

To understand the meaning of effectiveness from 3 primary perspectives; namely

Students, Faculty and Administration .
 To relate this meaning of ‘effectiveness’ to the duration of classes.

To find the optimum duration of classes with regard all three perspectives.

5. Methodology and Data Collection

In this section, the research design, sample of the population, sampling technique, instrument for
data collection, validation of the questionnaire, administration of the instrument and method of
data collection are discussed. The type of research used is “Exploratory Research” and “Causal
Research”. It aims to identify the relationship between the duration of a lecture and the
effectiveness of the lecture. Primary data was obtained directly from its source, i.e. students,
faculty and administrative staff.

Research Design-

We chose a ​survey research design because it best served to answer the questions and the
purposes of the study. The survey research is one in which a group of people or items is studied
by collecting and analyzing data from only a few people or items considered to be representative
of the entire group. In other words, only a part of the population is studied, and findings from
this are expected to be generalized to the entire population.

Sample of the Population-

The target population for this research include the Undergraduate students of FLAME
University, professors and also the administration staff. The students, professors and
administration staff were considered appropriate as population of the study area because they
constitute the main stakeholders in our research. The students and professors are to follow the
daily routine of class schedules whereas the administration department (Program Office) actively
formulates these schedules. Thus, they are in the best position to furnish the our research with the
information needed to quantify our study.
Sampling Techniques-

A ​simple random sampling procedure was used for selecting the participants in this study. This
technique was employed to ensure a fairly equal representation of the variables for the study.
​ here we sent out the survey questionnaire on
This was done through ​list- based sampling w
Whatsapp groups to members of FLAME University.

Instrument for Data Collection-

An questionnaire and an interview question list was designed the data collection instruments for
this study. A member of the administration was interviewed. The interview questions (see
Appendix) were aimed at eliciting relevant information concerning the class schedules and
timings in FLAME University. Questions relating to methodology of how class timings are
determined and divided throughout the week were asked during the interview. We used
probability sampling and non-probability sampling techniques for the research. The
questionnaire used the probability sampling method of ‘random sample’ whereas the personal
interview used the non- probability method of ‘convenience sampling’.

Questionnaire -

The rationale behind using a questionnaire for the research is that it is:

1. Free from the bias of the interviewer

2. The respondent has enough time to answer
3. Larger samples can be reached

The questionnaire was created on Google and sent out across all batches of undergraduate
studies’ students and faculty. Since our research aims at analyzing data from all these different
stakeholders, a questionnaire helped reach them all.

Personal Interview -
The rationale behind conducting a personal interview was that through this semi-structured
interview, information can be obtained in depth and the sample can be controlled, thus providing
a greater flexibility. The interview was with a member of the administration department to know
about how classes are scheduled, how they are divided through the week and how timings and
durations are determined.

Method of Data Collection-

After all necessary modifications to our sampling tools, the questionnaires were administered
directly to the sample for the study. The survey was open for two days. Using an online platform
for our survey made easy the process monitoring of response collection. The opposite could have
been the case if we had taken the up the task of going around the campus to distribute and collect
physical questionnaires.

6. Results

There were a total of 8 questions which were sent to the respondents. Both the faculty and the
students were sent the same set of questions. The questions were as the following:

i. Do you have lectures for 3 hours or more?

No. of
Respons No. of student faculty Total
e responses responses Responses

Yes 39 6 45

No 27 8 35

ii. Do you find yourself getting easily distracted?

 No. of No. of
student faculty
Respon response response Total
se s s Responses

Yes 34 0 34

No 4 8 12

Someti
mes 28 6 34

iii. What is your average attention span?

No. of
faculty
No. of student response Total
Time responses s Responses

0-30 mins 32 0 32

30 mins-1 hr 9 3 12

1- 1.5 hrs 17 1 18

1.5- 2 hrs 8 3 11

2- 3 hrs 0 7 7

iv. Is the current 10 minute breaks between every hour of class a satisfactory system
according to you?

No. of No. of Total

student faculty Response
Response responses responses s
 Yes 37 8 45

No 29 6 35

v. How many hours of lectures for one class would you prefer in a day?

Preferre No. of No. of Total

d no. of student faculty Resp
hours responses responses onses

1 27 2 29

2 25 10 35

3 12 2 14

4+ 2 0 2

vi. Of the given options, what do you find is more efficient, given there are 3 hours per
course, per week?

No. of
Preferred No. of student faculty Total
scheduling responses responses Responses

1 hour lecture
thrice a week 55 9 64

3 hour lecture
once a week 11 5 16

vii. At which time of the day would you prefer your classes?
 Time No. of No. of Total
of the student faculty Resp
Day responses responses onses

Morn
ing 43 10 53

After
noon 22 4 26

Eveni
ng 1 0 1

7. Analysis

This section reviews the results and analysis of the compilation of the questionnaire and the
interview and the results and analysis of the quantitative findings of the study. The student’s
response, faculty response and administration response is analyzed from the reports stated in the
previous section.

Student Respondents

One section of the questions asked about the students’ schedules and preferred schedules.
To begin, 59% of students had lectures that were 3 or more hours long, while 41% did not. When
the students were asked about their preferred hours of lectures for one class in a day, the results
showed 41% of students preferred 1 hour lectures, 38% preferred 2, 18% preferred 3, and a mere
3% preferred over 3 hours. The two respondents that preferred over 3 hours of lectures also
answered that they do not have lectures longer than 3 hours. As for the students that preferred 1
hour lectures, they had all also answered that have had 3+ hour lectures before, or are currently
taking 3+ hour lectures. These results clearly distinguish between those who have experienced
3+ hours lectures before, and those who have not. Those who have taken 3+ hour lectures before
did not seem to prefer that timing at all, as not one opted for the longer periods. The 3% of
students that prefer 3+ hour lecture whilst not having had any lectures in that timing, seemed to
have a perception that the longer hours would be ideal.

The second series of questions asked about attention spans and efficiency of the class
timings. One question asked about whether the respondent finds themselves getting distracted a
lot during class. To this, 52% stated that they do get distracted, 42% said that they sometimes are
distracted, and 6% said they do not. When asked about their attentions spans, 62% answered an
hour or less, while 38% answered one to two hours. There were no student respondents who
answered for three hours or above. Another question asked whether students would prefer a 1
hour lecture thrice a week, or a 3 hour lecture once a week; as most class schedules are modeled
in a similar fashion. To this, 83% preferred 1 hour lectures thrice a week while 17% would prefer
the latter. In a similar fashion, another question asked about which duration of lectures
respondents would find themselves the most engaged in. 35% answered 1 hour or less, 28%
answered 2 hours or less, while 3% answered 3 hours or less. Upon thee analysis of this data, the
result are indicative of the efficiency of lecture 2 or less hours being the most engaging and
efficient for students. There was a significantly smaller number of respondents that found 3 or
more hours of lectures to be superior.

Faculty Respondents

The faculty questionnaires has the same questions as the students. However, there were
also a significantly lower number of responses to the faculty questionnaires, as there were only
14 respondents. The first set of questions asked about the faculty’s schedules and their preferred
schedules. When asked if they have lectures for three or more hours, 43% responded yes while
57% responded no. Another question asked how many hours of lectures for one class would the
respondent prefer in a day. 85% of the faculty would prefer 1-2 hours of lectures, while 14%
would prefer 3 or more hours. The large majority of the faculty sample would prefer 1-2 hours of
lectures for one class in a day.

The second set of questions asked about attention spans and efficiency of the class
timings. When asked about their average attention spans, 50% of faculty answered 2-3 hours
while the remaining 50% were ranging between 30 minutes to 2 hours. When asked if the faculty
find themselves getting distracted, 57% answered no while 43% answered sometimes. When
asked whether the faculty would prefer a 1 hour lecture thrice a week, or a 3 hour lecture once a
week, 64% answered for a 1 hour lecture thrice a week while 36% opted for the latter.

Administration

To take into account the perspective of the administration, we conducted an personal interview
with a representative of the same. In conversation the primary themes that the study was
concerned with were about the factor that are taken into account about the slots, the reasons for
the current scheduling and suggestions and complaints that may have been received. Through
the responses we understood that the primary point of decision is accommodating all schools and
classes which is dependant on the infrastructure. A lot is also dependant on the type of classes, if
it is a practical based class, there is usually a higher requirement of continuous time, so as to
practice. On the other hand, certain classes require adequate time between them so the students
can prepare for discussions and absorb the reference material. Apart from this, they must also
adhere to the UGC guidelines about class scheduling and teacher requirements and limits.

These are some of the reasons which illustrated the reasons for the class scheduling in general.
For the longer block classes, a lot of the times is because these are taken by visiting faculty or
industry professionals who can accommodate only in certain ways. These usually lead to long
classes in one day as the visiting faculty has to remove themselves of other commitments for the
entire day.

So it is seen that while they are aware of the issues of longer classes, the expected benefits
outweigh the inconvenience. There is still continuous talk on improvement so as to achieve the
benefits and negate the issues, this however will always continue.

Overall

While maintaining this distinction between student and faculty responses, the results from the
overall pool of responses stand as follows.
Of the total pool, 42.5% answered that they do get easily distracted with a whopping majority of
85% agreeing to being susceptible to getting distracted. Only 15%, all of which were faculty,
claimed that they do not get distracted easily.

In the analysis of the average attention spans, only 8.75% of the sample claimed that they have
an attention span lasting more than 2 hours. However of all these, all the respondents were
faculty, thus pointing towards the fact that students are unable to absorb the lectures lasting
longer than this, and are getting incomplete effectiveness of the knowledge imparted in each
class. The highest percentage, 22.5%, was for 1 to 1.5 hours as the optimum attention span.

Out of the pool, a grand 80% responded with preferring 1 hour lectures spread accross the week
in comparison to the 20% who preferred 3 hours in a go. This ties in definitely into the study
with the entire sample establishing that the time duration may be a cause in changing the
effectiveness of the delivery of the lectures. However, also taking into account the fact that a lot
of the reason that the classes are scheduled like this are because of scheduling requirements and
adjustments to ensure certain benefits as mentioned by the representative of the administration.

8. Limitations

This research work was not void of limitations. Some of the limitations that were faced during
this study include:
1. There is a possibility of self-serving bias. Self serving bias takes place when the
respondent answers questions in a way that would make him/her seem favorable. Positive
factors are attributed internally while negative factors are attributed externally. As a
result, the responses may not be completely accurate. Self serving bias is often inevitable
in surveys that ask personal questions (i.e. attention span, engagement) to the
respondents.
2. There is no way of checking misinterpretations and unintelligible replies by the
respondents in the questionnaires. As the survey was conducted digitally for convenience,
there is no way in ensuring an appropriate answer for all of the questions. This was seen
 in the faculty responses, as many had left one question unanswered, deeming the question
unusable. Similarly, it may have also been possible that the questions were
misunderstood.
3. The sample size of the faculty was significantly smaller than our student sample, making
it difficult to find significant relationships from the data, as statistical tests normally
require a larger sample size. The student sample was significantly larger, mainly due to
the WhatsApp batch group system. By sending out a mass text, the number of responses
are more. However for faculty, there was no such WhatsApp group that students had
access to. This was why the questionnaires were emailed out to the faculty, one again
limiting the number of faculty responses received.
4. The large amount of data gathered made the research all the more difficult to manage and
analyze. While there was only one common questionnaire sent out, the data was divided
into three sections for analysis: students, faculty, and overall. This added significantly to
the time required to analyse the data, however did result in more in-depth and thorough
conclusions.
5. Since we conducted only one interview with an Administration Office member, the size
of the sample is limited. This makes our data homogenized and gives us a single
perspective. However, the samples for students and faculty were more in number, thus
providing us with substantial enough data to draw conclusions.

9. Conclusion
From the finding of this study, it can be concluded that majority of the students lose attention
and concentration during lengthy teaching learning activities and so is the case with professors.
The preferred time for a class is morning hours (between 7:30am - 1:30pm) and an ideal duration
for optimal concentration for a majority of the students and teachers is ​one hour of a class a day,
three times a week. ​It was also gathered that due to course clashes and professor unavailability,
the Program Office schedules classes differently.

10. Recommendation
 Based on this study, it can be recommended that lengthy lectures should have breaks, small
group discussions or other learning activities, which enhances attention and concentration of
students and make the learning interesting especially in cases where classes last for over an hour.

11. Acknowledgements
This research was conducted under the guidance of Professor Niraj Mankad. We would like to
thank him for making this research work possible by helping us throughout the process.

12. Appendix

12.1 Transcription
Interview- Mr. Shree Bhimanpalli (Program office, Administration)
Interviewer: Are the classes scheduled by your department?
Shree: See, there are 4 schools, no 5, sports isone of the other. Thats again, scheduling
has to be done. So what we have done is we have divided our slots into different time
slots you know like, 9 to 11 is PG1. 11 to 1:30 is PG2 and thereafter you know different
slots. Or you know morning 9 to 11:30 is UG1 then in between, from 2 to 4:10 is UG2 so
we have given these slots for different batches in order to. If you look at the infra of the
classrooms we don’t have a 100 classroom where we can schedule anytime anything so
we have to manage that optimisation as well. so these are the slots that we know that any
course running it has run from morning to 11:10. So then we try to fit in all the courses in
that slot and then we know that, like Chanakya, is an 80 capacitor and core courses are
60 seaters. 60 seats are there for each batch, or UG 1 batch. We cant fit in 60 students in
Ramanujan or Tagore or Aryabhatta. So of course we would need Chanakya. Chanakya
is ideally free by 3:10. So by that time PG classes are done so 3;10 to 5;20 we have given
for UG1, those 2 classes. So these are all the adjustments.
Interviewer: What are some of the reasons, why some classes are in a 3 hour block and
some otherwise?
Shree: There are several factors. One of them is that we have to make sure that the
visiting faculty has time and does not have to compromise on the other commitments.
And a lot of the classes are practical based and so they require some time for the actions
to happened and not theory based. For this for the actions to be done and they require
longer slots so that they can actually do the practical part and practice what they are
supposed to do. For FTV and Digital. They are more practical. So we thought why not
keep it little late so Kalidas is available or any other venues that are required are free. So
we don’t have to have any challenges with that. Faculty is also available, venues are there
and the guests are also there.
Interviewer: Does faculty have any say in the slots?
Shree: Yes. We come across every term these challenges. But then at the end of the day
we have to service. So sometimes it goes beyond control and of course it’s all
understanding and the willingness. Our goal is to make sure everyone is functioning and
functioning well. They are comfortable with their schedules and students are comfortable
to. There are certain requirements for some courses, like literature. it is discussion based.
The teachers need to give work to be read and time to prepare for discussions. So they
ask for classes like that. They ask for time as student needs time to read the content, the
material. These are the requests that have come for faculty. That we cant have class
continuous because there is too much of reading material and they need to do some
homework. The scheduling is done in a way, that the students get some time to read.
Interviewer: What are some of the factors influencing the decisions of scheduling?
Shree: As before, the availability of the infra and the coordination between faculty. Apart
from that there is also the guidelines that are laid by the UGC. We can’t give any faculty
continuous sessions , they have to have break. In a week, we're not trying to load them
with a 5 day week or a 6 day week, there'll be 2 days where they don’t have any class. At
the same time we're trying to make it so that students have the weekend or at least an
entire day completely free.
Interviewer: Is there a UGC guideline about the max number of courses faculty can
teach?
Shree: Yes there is, but not about courses. There is a limit on the max number of credits.
Each faculty is supposed to take 12 credits only.
Interviewer: Can they take less than that?
Shree: They can depending on the research and field work they have, Again its based on
the approvals of the area chair and the dean's. They have their yearly academic review
meetings. There it is decided.
Interviewer: Have you ever received any complaints or suggestions about the way the
classes are scheduled?
Students of course. We know about the communication school students. But we know the
other side of it. We attempt to deliver quality sessions from professionals on field. So
somewhere there is a win, there is a loss as well. We work on that balance.
Interviewer: Could you touch upon the kinds of complaints?
Shree: We've received complaints about the classes being very long, or that the classes
are on weekends. There is social life missing for the students. But at the same time, we
make sure proactively that we inform them so that. Some cases where the guest isn’t
coming or due to any emergency we can’t help it, but otherwise we've been fair enough
in informing. So students already know that.
Interviewer: Apart from logistical requirements and availability etc are there any other
factors, like attention span of students or anything or best time to study for individuals?
Shree: Not entirely because of the sheer number of people. In liberal education there are
so may permutations and combinations that FLAME offers. We attempt to give real
experience so doing that takes over and we're unable to do otherwise. We're trying to
make it better. We know its a lot on students so we're trying to find a day of just activities
or fun to relax but again the availability of industry professionals is a big factor. We're
having a lot of meetings with council and welfare and others. It’s on the, way it’s coming.
That’s why also this year there are no classes on saturdays so that an entire day gone.
Interviewer: Thank You.