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Lecture Method

Teaching in higher education is often seen as located between two extremes: (1) the traditional ‘lecture’ approach where an authority figure delivers material in a linear manner to the students and (2) innovative methods that involve a greater degree of bilateral exchange between the lecturer and the student body. The ‘lecture method’ is typically characterized by linear delivery of information, synchronous, step-by-step learning, where the speed of delivery of ‘content’ is set at the instructor’s pace, where content is to a greater degree in the instructor’s control, and where content is produced and controlled by the lecturer. This asymmetrical relationship between the academic, who is positioned as guardian of knowledge, and the students, who are relatively passive recipients of this knowledge, is what characterizes the formal lecture method and distinguishes it from alternate methods of delivering higher education.

The lecture may serve multiple educational purposes. It can be used to efficiently explain an area of study, present a problem, promote student critical thinking on a topic, introduce and elaborate on new information, and give insight to the lecturer’s or others’ experience. This entry discusses the various strengths and limitations of the lecture method, as well as innovations and attempts to integrate the extremes, lecture, and more bilateral methodologies.

Strengths: Why the Lecture Persists

There are several clear advantages to the lecture method that have seen it dominate the delivery of content in higher education through much of its history. Such teacher-centred approaches allow universities to control curriculum relatively tightly, cover greater amounts of material in shorter periods of time, manage higher ratios of students to staff, and ensure greater uniformity of content between campuses and semesters. Control and economies of scale are powerful arguments for the persistence of the lecture.

Surveys indicate that despite a supposed ‘revolution’ or ‘evolution’ in teaching methods in the 21st century (e.g., ‘flipped’ classrooms, where students are asked to engage with course content before coming to class, and ‘blended learning’, which incorporates both face-to-face and online components), faculty continue to rely on, and prefer, the lecture method, for reasons related to efficiency. This is partly because most lecturers were themselves the product of the ‘lecture’ and succeeded in this linear style. The persistence of the lecture method is also partly driven by student preference. Results of studies that compare recorded lectures delivered online with face-to-face lectures, for example, suggest that higher achieving students are less likely to view recorded video of a lecture than lower performing students. Students, at least to some degree, see the ‘live’ performance (relative to online methods) as giving them greater value.

Limitations of the Lecture Method

Evidence suggests that assimilation of knowledge tends to drop off rapidly after 10–20 minutes during a typical lecture. Because of its speed of delivery and linear nature, there are also limited opportunities for critical thinking on the part of the students, who become relatively passive consumers of what are supposedly higher order concepts and content. Students have the option to sit and listen while the lecturer stands and delivers or to attempt to take notes or recordings of the content. Pressures faced by institutions to provide web-based technologies such as lecture recordings also restrict the style and structure of lectures. There is little opportunity for students to add to or question the knowledge they receive. The information has already been selected and interpreted by the lecturer. Opponents of the traditional lecture argue that students do not develop the capacity to challenge knowledge and only learn content in a relatively superficial and transient manner.

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