Instructor presence in video lectures: The role of dynamic drawings, eye contact, and instructor visibility.

Abstract

This study tested 3 instructor presence features in learning from video lectures: dynamic drawings, eye contact with the camera, and instructor visibility. In 2 experiments, college students watched a video lecture about the human kidney, which consisted of a series of drawings and a spoken explanation from the instructor, and then took a written posttest assessing retention and transfer. In Experiment 1, students viewed a lesson consisting of a spoken explanation coordinated with static, already-produced drawings (static drawings group) or with drawings dynamically created by the instructor (dynamic drawings group), both without the instructor visible. In support of the dynamic drawings hypothesis, a t test indicated the dynamic drawings group significantly outperformed the static drawings group on the posttest (d ϭ .54). In Experiment 2, students viewed 2 new versions of the kidney lesson, in which the instructor was visible on the screen and either did not provide eye contact with the camera (conventional whiteboard group) or did provide eye contact (transparent whiteboard group). In support of the social agency hypothesis, a t test indicated the transparent whiteboard group significantly outperformed the conventional whiteboard group on the posttest (d ϭ .54). Finally, consistent with the instructor visibility hypothesis, analyses comparing the dynamic drawings group and the transparent whiteboard group indicated no significant differences in posttest performance. Overall, these findings suggest that learning from video lectures is enhanced by specific instructor presence features, such as instructor dynamic drawing and instructor eye contact, rather than by merely having the instructor visible on the screen. Educational Impact and Implications StatementHow should we design online instructional video to maximize student learning? In the present study, students learned better from an instructional video about the human kidney when they could see the illustrations being drawn by the instructor rather than seeing already drawn illustrations, and when they could see the instructor's eyes looking at them rather than having the instructor not directly face them as she lectured.

Caring for Persons With Intellectual Disabilities and Challenging Behavior: Staff Experiences With a Web-Based Training Program

“…The informants also found it regrettable that accessibility to education and training within the sector has been reduced in recent years due to financial circumstances. Finally, research on designing learning through supportive web-based lectures has only just begun ( 48 ), and as such it would be wasteful not to look for opportunities to make use of the potential of such technology in competence development for the benefit of health and social care services in municipalities.…”

Synchronized eye movements predict test scores in online video education

“…For instance, when learning from pictures and written text, fixation times and rereading predict learning performance [31]. Showing the instructor's face while talking seems to help students' attend to the material [32,33], but there are mixed results on whether this is actually beneficial for learning [34,35]. These types of results required careful analysis of the exact content that is fixated upon.…”

Learning by explaining to oneself and a peer enhances learners’ theta and alpha oscillations while watching video lectures

“…Therefore, the question of how to effectively learn from video lectures has attracted much attention from researchers and educators. Many attempts have been made to apply design principles in creating videos that will maximize learning (Fiorella & Mayer, 2018; Fiorella, Stull, Kuhlmann, & Mayer, 2019; Pi, Xu, Liu, & Yang, 2020). For example, although many video lectures present only slides on the screen, empirically based designs informed by the principles of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2014) present the teacher’s image to motivate learners’ social response and direct their attention to important information.…”