BASR: Discourse Journal

Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE

Using Independent Study Groups with Philosophy Students

Author: Katherine Hawley

Journal Title: PRS-LTSN Journal

ISSN:

ISSN-L:

Volume: 2

Number: 1

Start page: 90

End page: 109

Return to vol. 2 no. 1 index page

1. Aims¹

We cannot teach philosophy through lectures alone. Lectures can play an important role in introducing issues and literature, but reading, writing and discussion are also required. So lectures are usually supplemented by tutorials or seminars—these provide a forum for discussion, an incentive for reading, and preparation for writing. But whilst lecturing to an audience of scores or hundreds can be very effective, tutorials become less and less useful as the number of people involved increases. It takes more confidence to speak in front of a larger group; under-prepared students can more easily ‘hide’; and it is more difficult to sustain a fruitful discussion. We do not expect a group of ten or fifteen people to maintain a single conversation when gathered together for dinner, or in the pub; no wonder then that this proves difficult in the seminar room.

Smaller groups seem more effective, but given limited resources we must choose between large, frequent tutorials, or small, infrequent tutorials. For example, the time allocated to a recent course allowed me to lecture once a week to all seventy-five students, and in addition offer weekly ‘tutorials’ in groups of fifteen, or fortnightly meetings in groups of eight, or three-weekly meetings in groups of five. Which to choose? Whilst there are disadvantages to meeting in groups of fifteen, there are advantages to meeting frequently. Misunderstandings can be cleared up more quickly, lectures are fresh in everyone’s mind, there is more discussion time, and it is my impression that more reading gets done if smaller amounts are expected weekly instead of larger amounts less frequently. A system of frequent meetings also means that if a student misses a meeting or fails to prepare properly, the consequences are less serious (this can also be a disadvantage, since it is evident to students). In general, though, fairly frequent meetings seem preferable².

It would therefore be great to find a way of making larger seminars more effective. The purpose of this report is to describe and evaluate a system I have used this year for the first time, one that involves students meeting in small ‘study groups’ without a tutor, discussing the seminar material in advance of the main seminar, and then emailing each other about their findings. Whilst the system was new to me, it is not an original idea, nor is it the only way of attempting to deal with larger groups. However, I hope that this record of my trials, together with the results of student questionnaires, will be of use to some other teachers of philosophy. On balance, I think that the system was a success, and I plan to use it in the future.

Apparatus

I tried the study group system with two courses at the University of St Andrews in 2001-02. In the first semester Epistemology had an enrolment of seventy-five third- and fourth-year students, mostly taking either Single Honours philosophy or Joint Honours with another subject, but this number also included a few visiting students from overseas. The standard length of the undergraduate degree here is four years, and most students pursue three different subjects during their first two years. I taught this course alone. In the second semester Metaphysics had an enrolment of eighty, including many of the students who had taken Epistemology. I shared the lecturing for this course with my colleague Josh Parsons. Another colleague, Stephen Read, took three seminar groups, whilst Josh and I took one seminar group each. Both of these courses were ‘core’ courses, which means that many students were required to take them, rather than opting to do so. Each course carried fifteen credits, intended to amount to one quarter of a student’s workload for the relevant eleven-week semester. Each course was assessed by means of an essay plus a two-hour examination. For each course, I recommended purchase of a single anthology (containing mostly journal articles from the last forty years), from which seminar readings were drawn. For each course, there was a weekly lecture lasting one hour for all students.

Methods

At the first lecture, students were asked to sign up for a weekly seminar time that suited them. I explained the study group system, and stressed that the system was new to me and that I would be willing to adapt the system during the semester, or even abandon it if necessary. Each seminar group (of around fifteen students) would be split into three ‘study groups’ of five or so students—students could contact me if they had preferences about this. Two or three sets of students contacted me, asking to be placed together; nobody asked to be kept away from anyone; one student asked at the outset to be excused from the study groups because of family responsibilities, and I agreed to this.

Lectures took place a few days before seminars. Between the lecture and the seminar, the study group was expected to meet at a time and place of their choice, discuss the set reading, then compose a one-page report to be emailed to the other members of their seminar group (i.e. fifteen or so students in total), plus the tutor. Since we are warned against revealing personal information, I asked everyone to sign a consent form permitting me to distribute each student’s email address to others in the same seminar group. In principle, then, every student would receive three emailed reports before the seminar, including the report produced by his/her own study group.

Initially, I allocated different reading on the same topic to the different study groups within a seminar group. The idea was that each student would read and discuss one article carefully, and read reports on a further two articles. The seminar would range across the three articles and different students would be able to contribute to discussion from different perspectives. It was not to be so. After a couple of very flat seminars, I asked one group what was wrong. Students explained that they didn’t feel confident about discussing material that they hadn’t read, and that they found it hard to get a sense of the other articles just from reading other students’ reports. They felt that the seminar had in effect been divided into three temporal parts, in which I discussed each piece of reading.

I changed the plan so that all fifteen students in a given seminar group were expected to read the same article, although one seminar group wanted to continue the division-of-intellectual-labour system, and so we did. Some students then became anxious that we would not cover enough material, but in fact it was evident from essays and exam scripts that conscientious students at least had gone on to read the ‘neglected’ articles after the seminar discussion of the main article, treating these in the usual way as supplementary reading. And on the whole, discussion picked up once we had made this change.

Use of email seemed more problematic than I had expected (although questionnaire returns later suggested that the majority of students liked using email; perhaps those who had problems were more vocal). Although nobody refused to send and read email, many found it difficult or at least inconvenient to print emails, and few seemed to know how to handle attachments. We introduced a no-attachments rule. This may be a local phenomenon, since the standard way for students to access their university email accounts is via PINE, and it is not entirely straightforward to print emails or open attachments in this way.

As a compromise, and in response to student requests, I began to print out reports myself, and put them into the library where they were available to students to read and/or photocopy. This created complications and extra work. First, turnaround time was tight, which placed constraints on my own timetable on the day before the seminar. Second, students occasionally removed reports from the library, causing other students to complain to the librarian and/or me. Third, I began to write a few comments and corrections on reports, which reassured both authors and readers of reports, but took up time. When I later gave up this practice, students complained that they couldn’t see the point of reading ‘unvetted’ reports (I will discuss this issue further below). Finally, the recourse to red pen, photocopier and ringbinder rather took the hi-tech gloss off the project³.

I made one other fairly significant change as the course progressed, again in response to student requests: I began to set questions on the reading, as a way of helping students to structure their reading, their study group meetings, and their reports. Whilst I presented the questions as optional, most groups adopted the question-answer format for their reports, which improved the quality of weaker reports, but decreased the quality of reports from the stronger groups. Of course, much depends on the questions set: initially I asked just descriptive questions, but better results were obtained when I also asked evaluative questions (e.g. ‘how successful are X’s arguments for Y?’ as well as ‘what point is X trying to make in section 2?’)

Results

Towards the end of each course, I distributed anonymous questionnaires, asking questions about how the study groups had worked in practice, about how they had affected seminars, and about how students had perceived the course more generally. (I also asked them to fill out our usual evaluation forms, which ask about lecture quality, library provision and so on). Details of questionnaire responses are given in the appendices. In the present section I will give a more qualitative description of these results, together with my own impressions of how the system worked. I will focus on the results for the first semester course (Epistemology), partly because I obtained more questionnaire responses there, but I will also discuss some differences in student responses to the two courses. In the concluding section of the paper, I will explain how I would use the system in future, and mention some possible extensions of the system.

In the first semester, students typically said that their study groups met every week or most weeks, that the meetings lasted for an hour or so, and that usually just one person was missing. I had had the impression that most groups were meeting less frequently, but the questionnaire result suggests instead that groups sometimes met without producing a report as evidence of the meeting. The issue of attendance is a tricky one, since the tutor cannot monitor attendance except by requiring students to inform on one another. This seems to me to be unacceptable. I usually enquired gently after missing reports, but it would certainly be possible to be more forceful about this.

However, many students felt strongly about ‘freeloaders’. One student asked after a couple of weeks to be moved to a different group, complaining that others in the study group were disorganised and ill prepared; I granted this request. Conscientious students often felt that those who either didn’t turn up for study groups, or else turned up unprepared were profiting unfairly from their labours. To a certain extent, I think this is a misconception—students who missed the meetings, or did not prepare were unlikely to get much out of the seminars, and students who showed up well prepared would get some benefit from both the preparation and the discussion. Nevertheless, it is beneficial for the individual if other group members are well prepared, and some students clearly felt frustrated by their peers.

It was the issue of perceived freeloading that made me reluctant to insist on reports being produced every week. The students tended to take it in turns to write the report (with the exception of one group who had access to a laptop and wrote the reports collectively during their lengthy meetings). If I had put more emphasis on the reports being produced weekly, this would presumably have resulted either in internal arguments or else in some students writing a disproportionate number of reports. Any student who wrote a weekly report would have benefited a great deal, but at the expense of a lot of bad feeling, I suspect. I could have required that each student submit at least two reports during the semester, but this would have detracted from the aim of making groups feel collectively responsible for their reports.

In arranging groups, I indulged in a little light setting, attempting for example to place strong students together (sometimes) and to distribute less conscientious students and overseas students (separately) amongst the groups rather than clustering them together. In consequence (I think) only one group completely collapsed, and that was one of the very few where students had asked to be placed together. The groups in which I attempted to collect some of the stronger students produced some very successful reports, and seemed to have particularly fruitful discussions. The possibility of thus manipulating group membership raises interesting political and moral issues, worth discussing elsewhere.

Most students on the course didn’t know one another when the course began. In the first semester, I set the study group system going by introducing the students to one another at their first seminar; thus, the first study group meeting discussed material for the second seminar. Everyone who answered the questionnaire that semester claimed that his or her study group met at least once. In the second semester, I did not introduce the members of the study groups to one another explicitly (although we did the usual round-the-table introductions), but just distributed the relevant email addresses and asked them to arrange meetings. Some groups in the second semester never met at all, and in future I would follow the strategy I used in the first semester, thus forcing at least one face-to-face initial meeting.

Several groups had difficulty finding a place to meet. I offered to book rooms for those who wanted them, and some groups took me up on this offer, but our teaching accommodation is in heavy demand and I would not have been able to find space for every group. Our accommodation is designed for lectures and tutorials, not for large numbers of meetings of small groups of students, and if the study group system became more common, we would need to think about whether the university could provide rooms bookable by students themselves for this sort of meeting.

Other groups had difficulty finding a mutually convenient time to meet during the couple of days between the initial lecture on a topic and the deadline for emailing that week’s report. St Andrews is a small town where most students live within 20 minutes walk of one another. But not all students live in the town. Students from the local region, including a disproportionate number of mature students, often live at some distance from St Andrews, which made them reluctant to travel in for a meeting unless they had other classes that day, and also prone to resenting freeloaders. Some students had heavy commitments to paid work, to family responsibilities or to extra-curricular activities, and some just resented the imposition of more structure onto their time. This raises the question of whether study groups should be presented as an ‘optional extra’ for those who want them, and I will return to this question in my concluding section.

Reports were read fairly often, but not religiously, and students were more likely to read reports produced by their own study group than those produced by others in the seminar⁴. On the other hand, the state of the library ring binder suggested that many students consulted the filed reports only when revising for the exam (i.e. after they had filled out the questionnaire) so reports may eventually have been quite widely read. Students were keen on my ‘marking’ the reports—when I did so I usually just corrected glaring errors and highlighted interesting remarks, but even this minimal intervention seemed welcome. I did not often explicitly refer to student reports during the seminars, though perhaps this would have increased the status of the reports, and encouraged students to read them more carefully before the seminar. I think the main benefits of the study group system come from the discussions themselves, and from the preparation of the reports; so whether or not they are read is less important (although many claimed to find them at least ‘quite useful’). However, the prospect of other students reading the reports is presumably an incentive to producing good reports, and promotes the sense of a collective enterprise.

Most people who participated in the study groups thought that they were either ‘very useful’ or ‘quite useful’ in helping them understand the reading material and the broader subject matter. But there was an even stronger feeling that the study groups had been useful in motivating students to read. First, the study group meeting set a ‘pre-deadline’ for the seminar, giving the student two chances to get the reading done before the main seminar. Second, and more importantly, students repeatedly remarked to me that, in effect, they had realised that if no-one prepares for a tutor-led tutorial, the tutor hauls them through, but if no-one prepares for a study group meeting, then the meeting cannot function. I find this very encouraging, since it indicates that the study groups gave students a sense of responsibility for their learning.

Many examination scripts and most essays showed evidence of an unusually close reading of the set articles. Even weaker students tended to structure their essay around a key article, rather than follow the structure of a textbook. I had the sense that for most students, the bulk of their work for these courses had involved careful reading of articles from the relevant anthology, and I view this as an important success. Of course, not everyone managed to obtain an in-depth understanding of the issues using this method, and many people complained about the difficulty of the material (on both courses). But whilst they may have learnt a little less epistemology and metaphysics than they would have done otherwise, I think that the experience of working hard on some tough material will have improved both their philosophical skills and their transferable skills related to reading and comprehension.

Many students said they were more likely to contribute to the seminars as a result of the study groups. The comments on this issue were even more encouraging (see the appendices). Those who felt more likely to contribute remarked either that the increased total discussion time gave them more of a chance to think of something to say—a good sign that they were simply thinking more—and/or that the opportunity to try out their ideas or express their confusions to friendly students who didn’t find them ridiculous made them more confident in the larger group. Of those who said that the study groups made no difference, some were negative about the groups, whilst others said either that they were too shy to speak regardless of the context, or else that they were confident enough to speak in any group. In a few cases it seemed that shy students had let their ideas filter out through their study groups. Although it would be preferable for those students to develop the confidence to speak in seminars, it is better that they contribute via study groups than that they not contribute at all.

Asked whether they would join a study group if it were optional, about half of the regular attendees in the first semester said ‘yes’, whilst very few recorded a definite ‘no’—most regular attendees in the second semester said ‘yes’, but there were fewer regular attendees in total. Someone wrote ‘probably not, but it would be better if I did since I’m too lazy.’ In the first semester, plenty said they would want to stick with the same people in future, although in fact this sentiment was not borne out in the second semester, when few students actively asked to be placed with particular others. Some were very critical of their fellow group members, whilst some said that they had liked their group but fancied a change.

Finally, although most students made comments about the study group system, it is striking that in both semesters relatively few mentioned any aspect of the study group system when asked to cite the best thing and the worst thing about the course as a whole: it was much more common to cite the lectures, the topics covered or the reading material (David Lewis featured as both the best thing and the worst thing about the metaphysics course, on different questionnaires).

There seemed to be less enthusiasm about the study groups in the second semester than there was in the first, and the system seemed to have operated less extensively, although I obtained fewer questionnaire returns in the second semester, so comparisons are only approximate. Why this difference? There were several significant differences between the two courses—the first was taught entirely by one person, whilst the second was team-taught; there were different students on the two courses (although there was substantial overlap); the first semester course was focused on a few interrelated topics, whilst the second semester course was more wide-ranging. However, with respect to the study groups, there were two main practical differences, which I have already mentioned, and which may have contributed to the waning of enthusiasm. In the first, but not the second semester, I introduced study group members to one another explicitly at the first seminar, rather than expecting them to find each other by email. This got the groups off to a good start. In addition, in the first but not the second semester, I usually marked the group reports and made them available in the library for students to consult. This increased the attention paid to the reports, and made the students feel they were getting feedback on their work.

Conclusions

Based on conversations, questionnaire returns, my experiences in class, and the work I read, I have no doubt that many students benefited a great deal from the study group system. But there are questions of detail about how best to operate the system, and there is also an important question about those students who did not benefit, either because other students had let them down, or because they simply preferred to work alone. I will deal with these issues in turn, and then consider some possible extensions of the system.

Even students who were broadly positive about the study groups seemed to need some outside impetus to get them going, including face-to-face introductions and the offer of rooms in which to meet. The monitoring of reports also seems to be important both to give students the continuing impression that the study groups are a central part of the course, and to make them feel that freeloading groups are under at least some pressure to perform. Minimally this monitoring can take the form of simply enquiring after missing reports, but it also seems important to many students that the reports are read and checked.

Of course, this requires extra time on the part of the tutor. More positively, report checking is an attractive way of providing some feedback to students on work that is not assessed, without taking on the task of regular marking of individuals’ work. It also has the advantage that reports are nominally ‘owned’ by the group, so that everyone can share responsibility for errors, and share the glory when the report is praised. Given time constraints, I would therefore be inclined to put more effort into report-marking in future, but to schedule slightly fewer seminars—for example, ‘skipping’ a seminar in the week that essays are due (when students typically fail to attend, or fail to prepare thoroughly in any case).

Students who were negative about the study groups generally fell into one of two groups. Either they wanted to participate but felt let down by other students (because their group had completely collapsed, or they felt exploited), or else they just did not want to participate. The first issue, of freeloading, is perhaps the most problematic element of the study group system, and I haven’t worked out a clear solution. One or two freeloaders in a group do not create a genuine problem if conscientious students can be persuaded that nothing is being gained for free: in future I would try to make it clear at the outset that those who do not contribute are in fact not benefiting much from their peers. But if under-prepared or absent students dominate a study group, then constructive discussion is undermined and the problem is genuine.

A partial solution is to make it clear to students that they can ask to switch groups. This is a useful quick fix, but it has its limitations: some students may be embarrassed to complain about their peers; study groups need to be kept small if they are to function properly; and in most cases it will be impractical for students to switch seminars, so alternatives are limited. And it means that the less motivated or less well-organised students are abandoned to their fates. Perhaps this is fair enough: all students have access to the seminars and lectures, and if they do not make the most of this additional opportunity, then perhaps, that’s just too bad. There are, of course, much larger issues here, about the extent to which students should take responsibility for their own studies.

Finally, there are students who simply don’t want to participate, either because they prefer to study alone, or else because they have other commitments and want to keep as much control as possible over their timetable. In future, I would allow students to opt out of the study group system from the outset, provided that they explain their reasons for doing so. If numbers are small, this should create no problems, but if a substantial number of students wish to opt out, it might be preferable to collect them together in traditionally run seminars, so that other seminars consist entirely of study-group participants. I think that an opt-out system is preferable to an opt-in system, since many students were persuaded of the value of the study groups only through participation. A department might operate an opt-out system for core courses, so that most students experience study groups at least once, followed by an opt-in system for subsequent courses when students can make an informed judgement about participation.

How might the system be extended in future? One option would be to do so through the department, so that students typically attend study groups for more than one course in a given week—if study groups are a good thing, then more study groups sound like a better thing, but this would increase both the demands upon meeting space and the difficulty for students in arranging meeting times. Another option would be to extend the system to less advanced students—in my institution, at least, this would heighten the problem of freeloaders, since there is typically a larger proportion of an unmotivated student in pre-honours classes. A third option would be to explore ways of assessing study group work—so far as I can see, this would be counterproductive, since the study groups are intended to provide a friendly, low-pressure environment. However, I am in general unfamiliar with methods of group assessment, so there may be possibilities for others here.

In summary: given large frequent seminars, study groups are a welcome addition and improve student learning in most cases. However, they do bring some extra work for the tutor. Moreover, care must be taken with the details of arrangements, and provision should be made for those students who have principled reasons for opting out. I have not explored the question of whether the use of large frequent seminars plus study groups is preferable to less frequent but smaller seminars, since my aim was to find a way of improving the large frequent seminars. The study groups have proved to be a successful way of engaging large numbers of students with some complex philosophical material.

Appendix 1. Questionnaire Results for the First Semester

In the first semester course (Epistemology)—the class size was 75, and I obtained 57 responses (though not everyone answered every question). Other students were either absent when I handed out the questionnaires, or else didn’t fill them in. Presumably, then, students with a negative attitude towards this course in particular, or towards their studies in general, are underrepresented in these responses. I have given the data as raw numbers, rather than as percentages.

1. How often did your study group meet? (57 responses)
Every week: 33 Most weeks: 14 About half the weeks: 5 Hardly ever: 5 Never: 0

In analysing responses to all the remaining questions, I have distinguished between students who said their study group met every week or most weeks (Frequent meeters), and those who said they met about half the weeks or hardly ever (Infrequent meeters).

2. At a typical study group meeting, how many people were missing?
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
No-one: 8 One person: 26 Two people: 10 Three people: 2 Four people: 1
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
No-one: 1 One person: 3 Two people: 3 Three people: 1 Four people: 2

3. How long did your study group meetings usually last?
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Less than 30 minutes: 1 30-60 minutes: 23 60-90minutes:15 over 90 minutes: 8

Several people who said they met for longer than 90 minutes explained that they had written the group report collectively on a laptop during the study group meeting.

Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Less than 30 minutes: 0 30-60 minutes: 7 60-90 minutes: 3 over 90 minutes: 0

4. When you wrote a report, how long did it usually take you?
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Less than 10 minutes: 0 10-30 minutes: 5 30-60 minutes:21 60-90 minutes: 14 more than 90 minutes: 7
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Less than 10 minutes: 0 10-30 minutes: 0 30-60 minutes:7 60-90 minutes: 3 more than 90 minutes: 0ic

5. How often had you done the set reading before your study group meeting?
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Always: 16 Most times: 26 Some times: 4 Never: 1
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Always: 2 Most times: 4 Some times: 3 Never: 1

6. How often had you done the set reading before the main seminar?
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Always: 24 Most times: 18 Some times: 3 Never: 2
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Always: 3 Most times: 5 Some times: 0 Never: 2

7. How often did you read your group’s report (when you didn’t write it)?
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Always: 13 Most times: 14 Some times: 15 Never: 5
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Always: 3 Most times: 5 Some times: 0 Never: 2

8. How often did you read other groups’ reports?
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Always: 8 Most times: 18 Some times: 18 Never: 3
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Always: 1 Most times: 3 Some times: 6 Never: 0

8. How often did you read other groups’ reports?
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Always: 8 Most times: 18 Some times: 18 Never: 3
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Always: 1 Most times: 3 Some times: 6 Never: 0

Please explain your choice: Those who preferred email usually cited convenience, and often had email access at home. Those who preferred the library said that they liked to read hard copy, that they didn’t have easy access to email and/or that they were not comfortable using computers. One respondent also remarked that in the library s/he had access to reports from seminar groups other than her own, whereas email circulation was restricted to a single seminar group.

Thinking about possible benefits from this system...

10. For helping you understand the set reading material, the study groups were:
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Very useful: 18 Quite useful: 21 Not much use: 6 Confusing: 2
‘very useful as long as everyone had read it - otherwise spent ages on unimportant points’
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Very useful: 0 Quite useful: 5 Not much use: 5 Confusing: 0

11. For helping you understand issues more generally, the study groups were:
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Very useful: 16 Quite useful: 21 Not much use: 9 Confusing: 1
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Very useful: 0 Quite useful: 4 Not much use: 5 Confusing: 1

12. For motivating you to do the reading, the study groups were:
Frequent meeters (47 responses):
Very useful: 24 Quite useful: 17 Not much use: 5 Demotivating: 1
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Very useful: 1 Quite useful: 5 Not much use: 1 Demotivating: 3

13. When you read the reports from your study group, they were:
Frequent meeters (45 responses):
Very useful: 9 Quite useful: 23 Not much use: 11 Confusing: 1 Never read: 1
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Very useful: 0 Quite useful: 6 Not much use: 1 Confusing: 3 Never read: 0

14. When you read the reports from other study groups, they were:
Frequent meeters (45 responses):
Very useful: 6 Quite useful: 29 Not much use: 8 Confusing: 1 Never read: 1
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Very useful: 1 Quite useful: 5 Not much use: 1 Confusing: 3 Never read: 0

15. Did the study groups make you more/less likely to speak in seminars?
Frequent meeters (45 responses):
Much more likely: 9 A bit more likely: 14 Made no difference: 21 Less likely: 1
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Much more likely: 1 A bit more likely: 2 Made no difference: 5 Less likely: 2

Please explain your answer to the previous question:

Much more likely...
‘Gets you used to speaking up. Shows you that your comments aren’t as stupid as you think’; ‘It is easier to admit confusion to a small group of peers, and once you learn that it is common confusion, you don’t feel silly addressing it in seminar’; ‘Having worked through the material well and thought more about in discussion - helped bring up points to raise in class’; ‘Debating the same area the second time gives you a chance to speak about more developed ideas’; ‘Spent more time on the reading for the seminar so felt I knew more about it’; ‘Study groups gave me an idea of what I understood or didn’t understand, so more likely to raise my questions without feeling alone in the matter’; ‘I got to know people in my group so was confident that I was on the right lines or at least 3 other people would agree!’; ‘What I said in seminars was the ideas I came up with in study group’; ‘Especially when I had written the report, I had much more of an idea’;

A bit more likely...
‘Gives opportunity to discuss ideas and get others’ feedback’; ‘Having discussed the issues already with several of the other students perhaps made me a bit more confident in the seminars’; ‘If I have a better idea of what I’m talking about, I’m more likely to speak and discussing things beforehand - makes things clearer’; ‘I prefer to listen to what others say - I already know what I think’; ‘You had a better grasp of the material and therefore more likely to make comments’; ‘Feel you understand more’; ‘Even if you didn’t understand the topic you could always question it with more authority after study group meetings’; ‘The study groups made me more confident that my own thoughts were valid and agreeable with other people’s’; ‘Not usually forward within a group unless sure of subject’; ‘But I still prefer just listening. When we are asked very obvious questions, people can feel patronized and that’s why we are often slow in answering’; ‘I knew that I definitely had some idea of what I was talking about’; ‘They gave me more chance to think about the readings and form opinions, so I’d have things to say in the seminar’; ‘Well, I think I spoke quite a bit in class - at least more than most, although I probably would have done this anyway. The study groups made me a bit more confident about what I was saying’; ‘A bit more likely to start with, though this tailed off towards the end’; ‘Already had ideas before coming to the seminar’;

Made no difference...
‘Unless someone from my group made the point I was going to it didn’t stop me except perhaps a few problems solved in study group’; ‘Not a confident student so I never speak in seminars anyway’; ‘I tend to talk a lot anyway, but it did make me feel more confident’; ‘I don’t feel that my understanding of the articles was altered much by the study group attendance’; ‘Most useful points were in our report, or mentioned by other group members’; ‘I’m not normally scared to speak in seminars any more. If I understand the work and I have a point that I think is appropriate I would make it regardless’; ‘It depends on whether I read the text, by myself or with other people’; ‘I do the reading with or without the group. If I’ve read it, I am prepared to speak in seminars’; ‘I still hate talking in seminars particularly when I don’t understand the subject’; ‘I have too much to say anyway’; ‘I talk a great deal regardless’; ‘It was helpful to have a more intimate group in which to speak, and clarified many things, but did not seem relevant to whether or not I would speak in seminars. Maybe it will in the long run’; ‘If I’ve done the reading, I’ll talk. If I haven’t, I won’t, so it makes little difference’; ‘I feel quite shy to speak in front of larger groups regardless of whether I have already had a meeting on the topic’; ‘I speak when I wanna, period!’;

Less likely...
‘Having gone over the material so much I felt drained’; ‘Felt slightly intimidated’.

16. If study groups were an ‘optional extra’ would you choose to join one?
Frequent meeters (45 responses):
Yes: 22 Maybe: 17 No: 6
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Yes: 3 Maybe: 5 No: 2

17. Would you want to stay in the same group of people on a future course?
Frequent meeters (45 responses):
Yes: 18 Don’t mind: 18 No: 9
Infrequent meeters (10 responses):
Yes: 2 Don’t mind: 4 No: 4

Finally, I asked students what was the best thing, and what the worst, about the course as a whole. Eleven students (out of 57) mentioned aspects of the study groups under ‘best’, and eleven mentioned them under ‘worst’. Most students commented on other aspects of the course, including lectures, handouts, reading material and topics. This suggests that the study groups did not dominate students’ perceptions of the course.

‘The first two study group meetings were rather confused and probably a waste of time. However, as we became more familiar with the study group system I found the time much more well-spent’; ‘Study group system sometimes meant that only one person ended up doing all the work, depending on the type of group you were in’; ‘In study group scenarios, it seems like whoever shouts loudest gets heard’; ‘I like them’; ‘It’s been much more interesting than I thought it would be, and the study groups were really helpful despite initial doubts’; ‘Best thing: the fact that each topic was discussed on 3 occasions, in lecture, study group and seminar meant that I gained a better understanding’; ‘I felt more comfortable knowing other students in the group’; ‘I found the process of writing the group report more educative than the actual meetings’; ‘I think study groups should be smaller in size’; ‘Personally I prefer reading and thinking about a piece of reading by myself for a while before I talk about it. So unless everybody was well prepared for the study group it wasn’t very useful’; ‘Definitely should be introduced and imposed on other courses. Very useful to have other people’s emails’; ‘Study groups are great but discussing the reading because we had to write a report was distracting, limiting and often frustrating. I would rather have a free-flowing conversation about the readings’; ‘Much time spent wandering about trying to find somewhere to have our discussion…’; ‘Study groups being compulsory put added pressure on to attend extra class and have to do additional work. Pressure spoilt the idea of being able to get together and chat informally about the subject’; ‘The study groups were very useful in making me do some work…Perhaps if one person from each group had to give a short presentation/summary of their report, people might be more likely to get the reports done’; ‘I felt that it didn’t really work because although I was willing to put the time and effort in, others in my group often didn’t turn up/didn’t do the reading. I had to do both my reports on my own’; ‘I hate the university email system’; ‘Study groups really compromised my personal time/work management’;

Appendix 2: Questionnaire Results for the Second Semester

In the second semester course (Metaphysics), the class size was 80, and I obtained 40 responses. The relatively low response rate was due to the fact that I handed out the questionnaires at the final lecture, which covered a topic which would not be discussed in any seminar—many students decided not to bother with this lecture. Again, conscientious students are likely to be over-represented here. I have given the data as raw numbers, rather than as percentages.

1. How often did your study group meet?
Every week: 4 Most weeks: 17 Half the weeks: 9 Hardly ever: 7 Never: 4
‘Every week at first, but dropped off as essays became due’; ‘About half the weeks, we found it difficult to find times where all of us could meet’; ‘I never met them, I don’t even know who they are!’

In analysing the following responses, I have distinguished between (a) students who said their study group met every or most weeks (b) those who said they met about half the weeks or hardly ever and, where relevant, (c) those who said they never met with their study group.

2. Would you have liked your study group to have met more often than it did?
Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Yes: 4 No: 13 Don’t mind: 4
Infrequent meeters (16 responses):
Yes: 10 No: 1 Don’t mind: 5
Never met (4 responses):
Yes:1 No: 1 Don’t mind: 2

3. At a typical study group meeting, how many people were missing?
Frequent meeters (21 responses):
No-one: 1 One person: 14 Two people: 4 Three people: 0 Four people: 2
Infrequent meeters (14 responses):
No-one: 0 One person: 5 Two people: 8 Three people: 0 Four people: 1

4. How long did your study group meetings usually last?
Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Less than 30 minutes: 2 30-60 minutes: 10 60-90 minutes: 9 more than 90 minutes: 0
Infrequent meeters (14 responses):
Less than 30 minutes: 1 30-60 minutes: 13 60-90 minutes: 2 more than 90 minutes: 0

5. When you wrote a report, how long did it usually take you? Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Less than 10 minutes: 0 10-30 minutes: 7 30-60 minutes: 7 60-90 minutes: 6 longer: 1
Infrequent meeters (14 responses):
Less than 10 minutes: 0 10-30 minutes: 5 30-60 minutes: 6 60-90 minutes: 3 longer: 0

6. How often had you done the set reading before your study group meeting?
Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Always: 7 Most times: 11 Some times: 2 Never: 1
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
Always: 8 Most times: 6 Some times: 1 Never: 0

7. How often had you done the set reading before the main seminar?
Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Always: 7 Most times: 12 Some times: 2 Never: 0
Infrequent meeters (14 responses):
Always: 6 Most times: 5 Some times: 3 Never: 0
Never met (4 responses):
Always: 1 Most times: 2 Some times: 1 Never: 0

8. How often did you read your group’s report (when you didn’t write it)?
Frequent meeters (20 responses):
Always: 5 Most times: 3 Some times: 10 Never: 2
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
Always: 6 Most times: 2 Some times: 2 Never: 5
‘N/A since only 2 of us ever submitted reports’

9. How often did you read other groups’ reports?

Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Always: 2 Most times: 5 Some times: 10 Never: 4
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
Always: 3 Most times: 4 Some times: 4 Never: 4

Thinking about possible benefits from this system…

10. For helping you understand the set reading material, the study groups were:
Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Very useful: 6 Quite useful: 12 Not much use: 1 Confusing: 1
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
Very useful: 1 Quite useful: 9 Not much use: 4 Confusing: 1

11. For helping you understand issues more generally, the study groups were:
Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Very useful: 4 Quite useful: 12 Not much use: 4 Confusing: 1
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
Very useful: 1 Quite useful: 7 Not much use: 6 Confusing: 1

12. For motivating you to do the reading, the study groups were: Frequent meeters (21 responses):
Very useful: 6 Quite useful: 10 Not much use: 3 Demotivating: 2
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
ery useful: 6 Quite useful: 5 Not much use: 4 Demotivating: 0

13. When you read the reports from your study groups, they were:
Frequent meeters (20 responses):
Very useful: 4 Quite useful: 10 Not much use: 5 Confusing: 1 Never read: 0
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
Very useful: 1 Quite useful: 5 Not much use: 5 Confusing: 0 Never read: 4
‘Quite useful in reminding me of what we’d discussed in the study group. They’d be more useful if [the tutor] had checked them over to correct any mistakes etc.’

14. When you read the reports from other study groups, they were: Frequent meeters (16 responses, since several people didn’t notice the questions on the back):
Very useful: 2 Quite useful: 9 Not much use: 3 Confusing: 1 Never read: 1
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
Very useful: 1 Quite useful: 5 Not much use: 4 Confusing: 2 Never read: 3
Never met (4 responses):
Very useful: 1 Quite useful: 0 Not much use: 0 Confusing: 1 Never read: 2

15. Did the study groups make you more/less likely to speak in seminars? Frequent meeters (15 responses):
Much more likely: 1 A bit more likely: 5 Made no difference: 8 Less likely: 1
Infrequent meeters (15 responses):
Much more likely: 0 A bit more likely: 7 Made no difference: 8 Less likely: 0

Please explain your answer to the previous question:
A bit more likely...
‘Confidence in material. Issues that had been discussed we felt free to ask questions’; ‘Because I had definitely done the reading and knew what we were talking about’; ‘Able to get ideas together before the seminar and made me do the reading’; ‘They made me feel a bit more confident with the material and the members of my seminar group’; ‘I always knew what I’d like to say, but hate speaking in class still!’; ‘I was better prepared for the discussion’; ‘It’s useful in that you have thought a bit about the reading prior to the seminar so you may have more ideas about it. I only speak in the seminar if I know what I’m saying makes sense, but I am not afraid to do so’; ‘more confident about the concepts at hand’; ‘Definite questions and comments already raised by the things we talked about in groups - already had ideas’; ‘It seems a bit pointless to just go through the questions in the seminar. We’ve written our answers in the email, and if the tutor marks them there’s no need to go over every question again’

Made no difference...
‘Had we met more often it might have made a difference’; ‘Depends on the week’s material’; ‘Seminar groups were quite large and intimidating’; ‘I would read or not read depending on available time—I will chip in when I feel I have a relevant point regardless of preparation’;

16. If study groups were an ‘optional extra’ would you choose to join one?
Frequent meeters (16 responses);
Yes: 11 Maybe: 4 No: 1
Infrequent meeters (16 responses):
Yes: 4 Maybe: 9 No: 3
Never met (4 responses):
Yes: 1 Maybe: 1 No: 2

17. Would you want to stay in the same group of people on a future course? Frequent meeters (15 responses):
Yes: 4 Don’t mind: 6 No: 5
Infrequent meeters (16 responses):
Yes: 2 Don’t mind: 3 No: 11

Finally, I asked students what the best thing was, and what the worst, about the course as a whole. Four students (of a possible 40) mentioned aspects of the study groups under ‘best’, and four mentioned them under ‘worst’. Most students commented on other aspects of the course, including lectures, handouts, reading material and topics. Again, this suggests that the study groups did not dominate students’ perceptions of the course.

‘Study groups are not a good way of studying for everyone; my workload/timetable for doing the reading earlier hampered my reading for other modules. They should be optional’; ‘Study groups are unlikely to work if they are organised externally, they should form naturally if they’re what students want’; ‘The reason our study group failed to get organised was that no one individual took responsibility to plan meetings. We were 5 strangers whose schedules conflicted emailing each other with ‘well, when do you want to meet?’ so eventually we all just gave up’; ‘I wrote too many reports’; ‘Annoying when certain groups or people within groups did not make the effort, but the discussions in study groups were much more helpful than seminars’; ‘Study group reports would be more useful if they were marked. What is the point in us writing a report if what we are writing has completely missed the point of the article or topic? If others are going to read the reports too it isn’t going to help them either. The study groups are worthwhile but if no-one gives feedback on reports, there is no further motivation other than personal gain [!] for groups to meet’; ‘To encourage proper writing of email reports, we need to believe they will be read by the tutor and marked if possible, although I appreciate that may be a lot of trouble.’

Endnotes

I was originally introduced to the method described in this article at a seminar run by Professor Cairns Craig of the Department of English Literature in the University of Edinburgh, and I am grateful for everything I learned there. I am also grateful to my colleagues Josh Parsons and Stephen Read, for their willingness to try out the system in their teaching, and of course, to all the St Andrews students involved, both for their participation in the trial and for the detailed feedback they supplied. Finally, thanks to Jon Hesk for helpful discussion.
In consultative meetings in my department, honours (3rd/4th year undergraduate) students consistently express a preference for more frequent tutorials, even at the cost of meeting in larger groups. On the other hand, participants at such meetings, although they represent their fellow students, are of course in another sense unrepresentative. And pre-honours students often express preferences for as few commitments as possible.
In the second semester course, Metaphysics, I did not use this library system, and relied only on email, partly because I did not want to impose burdens on my colleagues who were running seminar groups, and partly because I hoped that the report system would become self-sustaining. In the section that follows, I will compare student responses to the two systems.
Unfortunately, however, the wording of my question was ambiguous. I wanted to know what proportion of reports the student had read, but the question could easily have been taken to ask about the proportion of weeks in which the student had read a report. Thus a student might have read every available report, yet not answered ‘always’, on the grounds that reports were not always available.