Class Appeal: Lecture-based vs.

Discussion-based Courses
Group A2: Alyssa Cooke, Xavier Sann, Stephen Hofschneider
EDT180A
Professor Lewallen
November 18, 2016

Group A2
Class Appeal: Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based Courses

Introduction
The topic we decided to research was if certain class structures appeal more to college
students at ASU than others, in particular discussion-based courses versus lecture-based courses.
We asked the questions what grade level and college are you in to identify our target responses.
We asked, in general, if they took more discussion-based or lecture-based classes and then their
specific reasoning for answering the way they did. We also asked if they preferred STEM
classes and Humanities classes to be either discussion-based or lecture-based. To collect data,
we used the Google docs form, Google sheets and then uploaded it as an excel spreadsheet. We
received 101 responses from Professor Lewallens other EDT180 courses.

Results
On the majority side, about 56% of ASU students, according to our survey, prefer
discussion-based courses over lecture-based courses. These students would prefer to talk more
about their studies with each other during class time than to be in a class in which the professor
does all the talking and teaching.

Group A2
Class Appeal: Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based Courses

Reasons for Liking Discussion-based Courses

60
50
40

Number of Survey Participants

30
20
10
0

More fun than lecture-based courses

Reasons
The graph above represents the reasons in which these students who prefer discussionbased courses like those types of classes. Of these reasons, most students who would rather take
a discussion course like them because they believe that more information is shared about a topic
if the entire class gets involved than if the professor teaches everything about that topic for the
duration of the class period. In fact, 70% of these students believe that they can get more
information from other students over just the professor. To add to that, nearly 60% of the
discussion-preferred students just enjoy having the discussions in general. This may be due to the
fact that students just feel it is more fun or they know that there is always a chance the discussion
could get a little off topic, which leads to other reasons that about 45% of the students enjoy
discussion-based courses. With all of this in mind, it is important to see one drawback that over

Group A2
Class Appeal: Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based Courses

85% of students can agree on: it is harder to take notes during class discussion than it is to take
notes during a class lecture. Nonetheless, students truly seem to enjoy discussion-based courses.

Reasons for Liking Lecture-based Courses

80
70
60
50

Number of Survey Participants

40
30
20
10
0

More fun that discussion-based courses

Reasons

STEM class for Lecture-based Students STEM class for Discussion-based Students
Lecture-based

Lecture-based

5%
Discussion-based

14%
Discussion-based
23%
41%

45%
It would depend on the class

It 35%
would depend on the class
28%

9%

Does not matter to me

Does not matter to me

Group A2
Class Appeal: Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based Courses

Humanities class for Lecture-based Students Humanities class for Discussion-based Students
Lecture-based

Lecture-based

2%
Discussion-based23%
32%

5%5%
Discussion-based

It would depend on the class

It would depend on the class

61%

28%

43%
Does not matter to me

Does not matter to me

In comparison, the other 44% of all students surveyed preferred lecture-based courses.
Of these students who chose lecture-based courses, about 41% favor their STEM classes being
lecture-based with 46% stating that it would depend on what STEM class they were taking and
about 23% favor their humanities classes being lecture-based. The main reasoning for choosing
lecture-based courses were that it was easier to take notes and more information was shared by
the professor.
When comparing whether students would prefer STEM courses to be lecture-based or
discussion-based, we found that they would rather have them as lecture-based courses. In
comparison to the rest of the data, the majority of students answered that it would depend on the
class. It is also important to note that less than half of the results belonged to either lecture-based
or discussion-based, meaning we would have to further break down the question and specify
different courses to get a conclusive answer.

Group A2
Class Appeal: Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based Courses

We then asked whether students would prefer Humanities courses to be lecture-based or

discussion-based. The results we received were the opposite of the STEM survey, with
discussion-based being favored (belonging to 53.5% of the answers). This means many students
would rather interact and discuss topics with classmates in a Humanities course versus taking
notes while their professor lectures.

Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based:

Popularity by Grade Level
30
25
20
15
Lecture-based

Number of Students

Discussion-based

10
5
0

Grade Level
When all of the results are compared by grade level of the surveyed students
specifically the Freshmen, Sophomore, and Junior class discussion-based courses are favored.
Unfortunately, there were not enough Senior, BACC, and Graduate level students to see a
significance between types of courses the students at these grade levels preferred.

Group A2
Class Appeal: Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based Courses

Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based: Popularity by Colleges

W. P. Carey
Herberger
Mary Lou Fulton
Ira A. Fulton
Future of Innovation in Society
Health Solutions
Integrative Arts & Sciences
New College

College

Lecture-based

Discussion-based

Walter Cronkite
Sandra Day O'Connor

Liberal Arts & Sciences

Nursing & Health Innovations
Public Service & Community Solutions
School of Sustanability
Thunderbird School of Global Management
University College
0

10

15

20

25

Number of Students
Also, the colleges that had a significant amount of data were the Herberger Institute for
Design and the Arts, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, New College of Interdisciplinary
Sciences and Arts, and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Of those colleges, the Herberger
Institute for Design and the Arts, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, and College of Liberal Arts

30

Group A2
Class Appeal: Lecture-based vs. Discussion-based Courses

and Sciences preferred discussion-based courses. The New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and
Sciences students voted equally between lecture and discussion based courses.
Analysis
Overall, discussion-based courses seem to be more and more popular among college level
students. Perhaps a different study could be done to survey high school students and their
reactions. We can predict that the results would be the same and start to structure our schooling
systems around discussion-based curriculums to engage the students more.