The goals of tertiary education include higher order thinking, discipline-specific knowledge and skills, liberal arts skills, and personal development. Based on these goals, graduate outcomes should at the very least include creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills and a desire for lifelong learning. But how to attain such goals and outcomes is a major concern for educators. Lectures are generally assumed by teachers and undergraduates alike to be the best way to transmit knowledge and understanding, becoming the standard default teaching methodology for university classroom instruction. This paper aims to challenge such a methodology and its associated assumptions by reviewing and examining the uses and abuses of lectures. While lectures do have the advantage of informing students of facts, figures and the latest developments in a field of knowledge, they require a level of sustained concentration by students that is not psychologically feasible. In addition, lectures are counterproductive to the promotion of higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, evaluation and creativity. Even further, the Dr. Fox effect has dramatically demonstrated the illusion of knowledge acquisition and learning that entertaining and impressive lectures seem to promise. The results of this review make a compelling case for lectures to be considered largely obsolete in helping to achieve the above goals and outcomes of university education. Rather, tertiary educators must ensure that their pedagogical practices are theoretically sound and fit for purpose for producing graduates equipped for the economic and social needs of the 21^st century.

Author Profile(s)
Adrian Davis (EdD) is an English-language lecturer teaching Social Work undergraduates in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Macau Polytechnic Institute. His publications include From Ivory Towers to Castles in the Air? A Case Study of the Far Transfer of EFL to the Real World by Graduates of a Higher Education Institution in Macao (2018), An Exploration of the Conditions, Mechanisms and Teaching Methods in the Far Transfer of Undergraduate Learning to the Real World (2017), Social Work Undergraduates' Impressions of Content-based Language Teaching (2016), The Role of Poetry in the Teaching of English to Social Work Undergraduates (2011), the Leadership Wisdom of the I Ching (2010), and Teachers’ and Students’ Beliefs Regarding Aspects of Language Learning (2003).