Block or traditional? An analysis of student choice of teaching format

Journal of Management and Organization, Mar 2008 by Burton, Suzan, Nesbit, Paul L

ABSTRACT

Block (or intensive) teaching is used by many management schools, but the factors that drive students to choose (or avoid) block subjects are not well understood. This paper reviews the research findings on intensive teaching and analyses the factors which predict student choice between different teaching formats, based on an analysis of qualitative and quantitative survey data. If studying one subject at a time, a majority of students appear to prefer a less intensive format. However the results show that three factors influence students' likelihood to choose the block format: their experience with the format, their perception of their ability in a particular subject and their concurrent subject load. There are also subject specific differences in student preferences. Implications for block scheduling and for actions to address perceived disadvantages of the block method are addressed.

Keywords: block; intensive; traditional format; student choice

Intensive or 'block' courses have become increasingly common in higher education, particularly in post-graduate business courses (Davies 2006). In Australia, Commonwealth government grants funding to universities has fallen from 56% in 1996 to 37.5% in 2003 (Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee 2004). In response, universities have been forced to become more commercial, developing courses which will be attractive to fee paying students. These students (especially in business schools) are often studying part-time, balancing the demands of work, family life and study and typically do not find standard course formats convenient or attractive (Davies 2006). Alternatives to standard weekly courses have been around for many years: for example Grant (2001) refers to a history of block teaching of more than 25 years at Colorado College in the United States. However the preference of parttime, working students for more flexible modes of delivery means that intensive teaching has become increasingly common, with Davies (2006) suggesting that intensive courses are 'an idea whose time has come'. Most Australian business schools use some form of intensive course for post-graduate students, either for locally taught classes and/or when teaching courses overseas. Intensive, short duration courses have particular advantages for universities offering offshore teaching, since this format allows faculty to fly in and teach a full course in an intense burst. Growth in demand for offshore teaching has thus led to a commensurate rise in the use of intensive teaching; in 1999, there were 581 offshore programs offered by Australian universities mostly taught using intensive teaching and by 2003, this had grown to just under 1600, primarily in China, Singapore and Malaysia.

Intensive teaching thus has advantages for both students and universities, but despite its growing use by Australian universities, particularly in management schools, a review by Davies (2006) reported relatively few studies of intensive teaching formats in management education. He noted a complete lack of Australian journal research in this area, with the bulk of the research coming from the US, where the educational system is arguably different. The existing research has typically studied student reactions to a single intensive course (eg Grant 2001; Kasworm 2001) and data is typically collected immediately after a course ends, which may not reflect long term effects of such courses (Daniel 2000). Assessment of a single course at a single point in time in previous research also fails to provide any information about how student choice of format might vary across different subject areas, despite suggestions that the intensive format is more popular with students for certain subjects. Similarly, the single course study provides no information about how student reactions to intensive teaching may change as students become more experienced with study and/or with the intensive format. Answers to these questions can help universities and their management faculties respond to student preferences for intensive and/or traditional courses, prepare students for intensive courses, and also assist in managing student expectations of these courses. In response to the limited research into intensive teaching, Daniel and Davies (2006) have called for more research, and this research responds to those calls, by investigating the factors influencing students' preferences for intensive courses and how those preferences change (if at all) as students become more experienced with these courses. In particular, using a cross-sectional survey of management students with different characteristics and experience, we investigate how student characteristics (age, gender and perceived ability in a subject) student experience (study load, number of subjects completed and experience with intensive teaching) and subject specific factors influence students' preference for intensive teaching. The paper is structured as follows: the first section provides a brief review of previous research in this area; the second section presents the study and its findings, and the third section discusses the results and the implications for universities and their management faculties.