A Review Of Time-Shortened Courses Across Disciplines

College Student Journal, June, 2000 by Eileen L. Daniel

Psychology professors Ray and Kirkpatrick (1983) studied the impact of different time formats on both learning and attitudinal change. The authors measured students' knowledge, attitudes and anxiety regarding human sexuality after completing either a three-week intense course or a 15 week traditional semester-long class in human sexuality. Though both courses had the same instructor, the time-shortened course met for three hours a day, five days a week for three weeks while the semester-length course met three hours a, week for 15 weeks. Ray and Kirkpatrick found that both groups showed significant increases in sexual knowledge, decreases in anxiety, and a significant changes in attitude as measured by the Sex Knowledge and Attitude Test and the State -Trait Anxiety Inventory administered as pre-and post-tests. Students in the time-shortened course also showed significantly higher pre- to post-test gain scores in sexual knowledge than students in the traditional format section. The study also demonstrated that significant changes in attitudes and behaviors could occur in a time-shortened class.

Brackenbury (1978) reviewed final exam grades in eight sections of an educational philosophy class, All sections had the same instructor, text, course requirements and exams. There were three 15 week sections, two eight-week sections and three weekend classes that met over the course of four consecutive weekends. While the author believed that students in the traditional sections would out-perform those in the intensive sections, there were no significant differences between the exam grades. Boddy (1986) also found that students in intensive compared to traditional length education courses scored higher in semester and final exams. Austin, Fennell & Yeager (1988) found no significant differences in exam scores between students in a time-shortened summer course in research methods compared to those in a semester length session.

Education majors took General Special Education Programming in various concentrated time formats. Those in two and three week formats made greater gains than those in five and 15 week formats, and all indicted that they learned as much or more as in regular-format teacher education courses (Lombardi, et al., 1992).

Educational research is another area in which a time-shortened format has also been successful. Astin, et al. (1988) found no significant differences in exam scores of students in an intense-format research design class versus a traditional semester-length course that concurred with other researchers in education including Boddy (1986); Brackenbury (1978); and Lombardi et al., (1992).

Courses involving computational skills such as mathematics, science, economics and business can also be successfully offered in an intensive format. Researchers who studied intensive courses involving quantitative analyses include Caskey (1994) who found that courses in both accounting and college algebra could work in a time-shortened format. Earth science instructor Waechter (1967) determined that students in an intensive-format class had similar long and short term test scores. Van Scyoc and Gleason (1993) discovered that students in three week long microeconomics classes performed better on achievement tests than those in traditional semester courses. Doyle et al. (as cited in Scott 199 1) found that intensive format students scored slightly higher than traditional students in business administration classes. Petrowskys' (1996) finding, however, disagreed with other researchers. He found that business students in a time-shortened summer course had lower comprehensive test scores than students taking the courses in a traditional length semester.