Kristoffer Albris

Abstract

Do Students Find Oral Presentations Useful?

Oral student presentations (OSPs) are often used in higher education teaching, but it can be hard to gauge how students experience their value and learning outcome. An important aspect that sets OSPs apart from other activities in the classroom is that it requires students to present in front of his or her peers. In this project, I present and discuss findings from a survey conducted with students in the course Data Governance (part of the MSc in Social Data Science), taught in the fall of 2020. Based on two different OSP exercises on that course I ask how students see the value of OSPs as an element in teaching, and which forms and designs of OSPs they prefer. Only a small majority of students saw the OSPs on the course as being useful for their learning. When asked about when OSPs are most useful, students tend to report that it when they are used to present essays and work that lead toward their exams, also indicating that students want OSPs to have a function not just for learning but for course progression and exams.  I discuss how the findings of the survey can inform some general thoughts on when and how OSPs work best, including how tweaks in the design of OSPs can be done to ensure better feedback mechanisms.