Centre of Expertise for Higher Education

Podcasts as an assessment method

October 2024

in cooperation with Katrien Schaubroeck, Faculty of Arts, UAntwerp

Podcasts as learning materials in higher education are on the rise worldwide. They also offer some important advantages. For example, listening to a podcast — perhaps in combination with reading a transcript — keeps students better focussed (compared to reading only) and acts as a motivation booster (König, 2020). In addition, podcasts familiarise students with different narrative styles and thus increase not only their content knowledge but also their literacy (Ma et al., 2019).

Having students create their own podcasts has also been found to yield positive learning outcomes (Buddle, 2013; Wiltshire, 2021). A recent study of undergraduate tourism and anthropology students in Madrid (Enríquez et al., 2023) showed that the motivation and engagement of students who were tasked with creating a podcast was higher than those who only had to listen to podcasts. Creating (and/or having to create) a podcast helped students engage with the learning material in a meaningful way, leading to better understanding and more effective processing of the learning content. Studies by Hopkins (2012) and Wakefield et al. (2022) come to a similar conclusion.

Academic case studies and blog posts featuring teachers' experiences show that podcasts can be used as a form of assessment in many disciplines. A strong point that recurs in all testimonies, and is also confirmed in empirical studies, is that the task of creating a podcast gives students ownership: they become the owners of their own learning (Enríquez et al., 2023; Kemp et al., 2011; Yunus, 2018). Making a podcast therefore really encourages taking initiative.

Another asset is the ability to train so-called 21st century skills: creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking (Beyer et al., 2017; Byrne, 2016; Kemp et al., 2011; Enríquez et al., 2023; Wakefield et al., 2022; Yunus, 2018). Podcasts as a form of testing also help with diversifying education and accommodating individual learning styles and needs without increasing the workload for teachers (Buddle, 2013).

In what follows, drawing on the results of the studies mentioned, we provide a brief overview of the benefits as well as the potential downsides of using podcasts as a form of testing. We list a number of recommendations, including on evaluation criteria, and conclude with a practical example of a podcast assignment.

Advantages

  • It is an oral test form that — in contrast to the classic oral exam — can be listened to (maybe partially) several times.
  • For students with dyslexia or visual impairment, it can be a good alternative to a written test format where being able to evaluate writing skills does not play a crucial role.
  • It appeals to students' creativity and avoids exclusively reproducing learning material.
  • It allows students to master the content as well as competences such as presenting, summarising, paraphrasing and structuring.
  • It requires students to be able to translate scientific content into colloquial language. This requires each student to process the learning content and means practising the skill of reformulating academic content to reach a wider audience.

Disadvantages

  • The informal nature of podcasts can lead to students neglecting academic standards regarding referencing, citations or language use.
  • The focus on telling a personal narrative can potentially lead to absorbing the opinions of others, and thus to verbal forms of plagiarism.
  • If the podcast's target audience is not defined or not very thoughtfully defined, its content quality may be compromised in scientific/academic terms.

Recommendations

  • In the assignment instructions, specify a target audience for the podcast. Be sure to stipulate whether the target audience remains hypothetical or whether the podcast will actually be made public (e.g. during a class by fellow students, on a Spotify channel, in promotional material for the study programme).
  • Remind students of copyright issues when using music or tunes. Encourage them to make their own sounds or play a tune.
  • Make it clear that the podcast should explicitly mention the names of all creators and any interviewees.
  • Make students aware that when conducting interviews, it should always be clear who is speaking or whose opinion is being summarised.
  • Emphasise that intellectual honesty is as important in a podcast as in an academic paper: names of authors/books/speakers should be verbally stated at least once. A more detailed source list (with e.g. publisher, date of interview) can be included in an accompanying written document. It’s common for podcasts to appear on a website where such written information is added to the audio product.
  • Do you expect students to consult professional literature when preparing the podcast? Then have them create a guidance document in which they write out which sources they consulted and why.
  • Don’t expect long podcasts: ten minutes of interesting and in-depth format already requires a lot of preparation and thought from students, especially if they’re inexperienced in making podcasts.
  • Have students think carefully about the structure of the podcast: do they give an interviewee the first or the last word? Do they want to take a stance and if so, is it clear to the listener which one it is? What take-home message does the podcast want to convey to the listener, and does it succeed in doing so?
  • Give interim feedback on preparatory stages, such as creating a script or drafting interview questions. That way, as a teacher, you support the process.
  • Explain that students have to make conscious choices: is alternating voice-over, different voices, direct and indirect speech used?
  • Let students know about the available recording equipment and recording studios (in Antwerp GATE15, for example, offers recording studios) or about tricks to achieve good sound quality, such as recording the voice-over sitting under a duvet.
  • Illustrate or specify to what extent the content and/or format of the podcast will factor into the assessment for your programme component.
  • Make sure that students realise they should think carefully about the timing of recording. Some students tend to start recording too quickly, namely without having formulated a clear, defined research question or objective. They have no script or clear structure guiding the recording. The final product then often lacks the structure of a logical argument, i.e. with an opening, core and conclusion. If students start the actual recording too late, not enough time is left for editing, which can mean  unnecessary repetition or awkward transitions.

Assessment criteria

In order to assess a complex assignment such as making a podcast, a rubric is an appropriate tool (see ECHO teaching tip, 2017). The final competences of the programme component determine which competences need to be scored and with what weighting. They also guide, for example, the relative importance of content on the one hand and technical quality of the podcast on the other.

For less learning-content-related assessment criteria such as communication, creativity, collaboration or critical thinking, it’s often unclear to students (and any co-assessors) what specifically is meant by these and what it takes to score well. Breaking them up into partial competences can address this. For example, you can divide creativity  into being inquisitive (asking critical questions, investigating relevant side questions), being resourceful (finding solutions to problems in the creation process), and being collaborative (creating material while taking fellow students’ and any interviewees’ contributions into account, agreeing on a fair division of executive tasks) (see also ECHO teaching tip, 2015, in Dutch).

Be transparent with students about evaluation criteria from the moment the specific assignment is announced.

Example of a podcast assignment

In the course unit philosophical speaking (Bachelor of Philosophy, UAntwerp), students make a ten-minute philosophical podcast in groups of three.

In an introductory lesson, podcasts are played and then there is a discussion about what makes a podcast specifically philosophical. The assessment criteria are explained and related to already practised skills, such as taking a philosophical interview (covered in an earlier lesson). Technical tips such as good editing programmes (e.g. the free Audacity) are shared.

Students are free to choose the theme for their own podcast and are given eight weeks to design and create it. During this period, preparation lessons are timetabled in which teachers give oral feedback on the chosen theme and on students' approaches.

Processing an interview with one expert in the podcast is required. The invitation email for this candidate interviewee is submitted for interim assessment together with a design of the podcast: what is the take-home message?, what background information is needed for the listener?, which philosophically relevant concepts or positions relate to the theme?, which expert is suitable, and how will they be incorporated into the overarching story? Students receive interim written feedback on all points.

The final podcasts are submitted via WeTransfer. The podcasts are played to the whole group, after which there is peer feedback. The podcasts may be used as promotional material for the course. Subject to the permission of their peers, students can even use their podcast as a business card on the job market.

Want to know more?

ECHO teaching tips:

Websites:

Bibliography: