Log on to student motivation

Pat Leon speaks to lecturers who use online multiple-choice quizzes to focus tutoring sessions and enthuse the class.

Like many traditional universities, the London School of Economics believes in the pulling power of big lectures. These weekly events are seen as the core vehicle for setting out course concepts and models. It is also the only opportunity that hundreds of students taking the same course get to socialise in the same room.

Tutorial classes, however, are where the sharp end of teaching occurs. A couple of years ago, Margaret Bray and Jonathan Leape, who run a second-year core course on microeconomics principles, started worrying about what was happening in tutorial classes. The course, for about 450 students taking degrees in straight economics or combinations, relied on the two course leaders and a small band of PhD students who take about 30 different classes.

The PhD students received a couple of days of intensive training at the start of the academic year followed by regular sessions with Bray and Leape as the course proceeded. The PhDs' task in tutorials was to answer student queries and sort out problems. Two to four pieces of compulsory work were set per term but, with exams as the main form of assessment, students sometimes failed to hand them in. The result was that some fell behind.

Bray and Leape decided that a redesign incorporating new technology would bring the course together. "We wanted to change the rules," Bray says. Their key innovation was to create a weekly online quiz based on the lecture. Since Michaelmas term, students have been expected to come to tutorials having answered or attempted to answer up to 15 multiple-choice questions. The questions are hyperlinked to course material and worked examples.

A typical pattern involves a student logging on early evening, printing a couple of documents to read on consumer theory, for example, and beginning the quiz. After about ten minutes they might look at a worked example and then return to the quiz. The pattern will continue until the quiz is finished and automatically graded. The advantage is that students can log on at any time of day or night.

Although the quiz is not part of final assessment, they are expected to complete it before a class. Student reaction has been enthusiastic and tutors say their tutoring is much more focused. Prior to the weekly class, every tutor is given a weekly spreadsheet of results compiled by the technicians. These give a snapshot view of how the students are getting on and the class's problem areas.

Marta Coelho, a third-year PhD class teacher, says her sessions have become much more interactive since the quiz was introduced. "There's been a marked difference between last year and this in the level of preparation of students in classes. When I go into class now, I know the students' grades and which questions were a problem. It means I can prepare better."

Coelho says that, previously, students were often a little lost but "that's not the case now". She says that the nature of her 4-5pm office hour when she is available for students has also changed. "The students are talking about problems raised by the quizzes in the week rather than big issues."

Bray and Leape have also launched a web discussion board for information and questions. Students post or email questions to the lecturers who give a public answer. "It is so efficient to give one response and nip the confusion of 50 students in the bud," Bray says.

For her and Leape, this first year has been a huge amount of work. But the redesign gave them the opportunity to consider course material from the student's point of view. "As a quarter of the students are ethnic Chinese and half are from outside the European Union, we cannot take anything for granted, particularly when giving examples such as the political effect on the middle class of changing the standard rate of income tax," Bray says.

He says that the "feel" of lectures has changed as a result. "This has broken down the distance there tends to be. Very traditional lectures are becoming more motivating and capturing the interest of the students. We feel freer to make asides and tell stories to illustrate the concepts. Students are more interested and active; mobile phones never ring in lectures."

Other departments with large quantitative courses are considering whether to copy the example, especially if it keeps students on track.