The quantitative effect of students using podcasts in a first year undergraduate exercise physiology module

This study reports the quantitative effect of students using podcasts in a 1st year undergraduate exercise physiology module. From a cohort of 70 students, 50 volunteered and completed the study. Using a pre-post random allocation research design, students were allocated to either a podcast group (PG) or control group (CG) based on a 32-question multiple-choice exam. The PG then listened to six podcasts over six weeks, while the CG were provided with an exact transcript of the podcasts in printed form to ensure that both groups were provided with the same content. After six weeks, both groups were re-examined using the same test. Data were analysed using the effect size statistic and 90% confidence intervals. The CG improved their exam performance by 43%, whereas the PG improved by 46%. The difference between the groups on the post-test was a mean effect size of 0.19 (90%CI: -0.16 to 0.53 [trivial to positively small]). There is almost no chance that the true effect in the population is harmful. The results of this study suggest that using podcasts provides little quantitative benefit for students over and above written text when learning exercise physiology.