Asynchronous student-generated flip videos facilitate student learning and assessment in a large-enrollment introductory human physiology course

Abstract

Oral demonstration of knowledge is an effective learning and assessment strategy. It has been shown that generating explanations to oneself, or self-explaining, can improve student understanding of information. This can be achieved via student-generated videos. The quantitative effects of student-generated videos on learning and assessment in postsecondary education is unknown. To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the effects asynchronous student-generated videos have on student learning and assessment in a large-enrollment (~400 students), undergraduate physiology course. Students were charged with self-generating videos discussing major physiological concepts and uploading these videos to Flip for assessment. Flip is an online, social education platform for asynchronous video-based discussion. In the present study, we combined four semesters (n = 1,100 students) of Flip data and analyzed the effects it had on student examination performance. Specifically, we first analyzed how students performed on exam questions corresponding to their Flip prompts in comparison to students not assigned those prompts (25/44 (57%) were statistically significantly different). Second, we analyzed the association between Flip prompt score and performance on corresponding exam questions (39/44 (89%) were statistically significantly different). Third, we analyzed the association between cumulative Flip score and performance on all corresponding, and non-corresponding exam questions. Finally, we analyzed the association between cumulative Flip score and averaged exam performance. There was a positive association ( r = 0.54). Taken together, our data suggest that asynchronous student-generated Flip videos can facilitate student learning and assessment in a large-enrollment, undergraduate physiology course.