A Review Of Time-Shortened Courses Across Disciplines

Time-shortened Courses Across Disciplines

Time-shortened courses have been offered in a variety of disciplines including education, business, mathematics, English, foreign languages and psychology. Researchers compared the test scores of three sections of a health psychology class with the same instructor, content, readings, contact hours, and exams. Two of the sections were taught during a ten-week quarter while the third was during a five-week summer session. The authors found no significant differences in achievement among the three groups that concurred with findings of a pilot study that they had conducted the previous year. They concluded that the intense course was as effective as the traditional quarter class related to student achievement (Kanun, Ziebarth and Abrahams, 1963).

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).