Digital Learning - beyond eLearning and Blended Learning

Learning from video lectures is becoming a prevalent learning activity in formal and informal settings. However, relatively little research has been carried out on the interactions of learning strategies and social environment in learning from video lectures. The present study addresses this gap by examining whether learner-generated explanations and co-learner presence with or without nonverbal praise independently and interactively affected learning from a self-paced video lecture about infectious diseases. University students were randomized into viewing either the video with instructor-generated explanations or the same video but generating explanations themselves. Outcomes were assessed by the quality of explanations, learning performance, mental effort, attention allocation, and behavioral patterns. Between-group comparisons showed that, in the absence of a peer co-learner, learning performance was similar in both the instructor-generated and learner-generated explanation groups. However, in the presence of a peer, learner-generated explanation facilitated learning performance. Furthermore, learner-generated explanation in the presence of a co-learner also reduced learners’ mental effort and primed more behaviors related to self-regulation and monitoring. The results lead to the following strong recommendation for educational practice when using video lectures: if students learn by generating their own explanations in the presence of a co-learner, they will show better learning performance even though the learning is not necessarily more demanding, and will engage in more behaviors related to explanation adjustment and self-regulation.

Asking students questions before they learn something has been shown to enhance memory for that information. Studies demonstrating this prequestion effect in reading tasks have shown that such prequestions may not enhance—and could even impair—learning of information that was not prequestioned, possibly due to learners’ tendencies to selectively process the prequestioned information at the expense of non-prequestioned information. The current study explored the effects of prequestions on learning from videos, where such a selective processing strategy would be less likely to occur. Participants viewed an educational video and either answered prequestions prior to viewing each of three segments (Prequestion Group) or viewed the same video without answering prequestions (Control Group). A later test revealed a significant advantage for the Prequestion Group over the Control Group, and this pertained to both prequestioned and non-prequestioned information. Thus, prequestions appear to confer both specific and general benefits on video-based learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

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In recent years, COVID-19 policy measures massively affected university teaching. Seeking an effective and viable way to transform their lecture material into asynchronous online settings, many lecturers relied on prerecorded video lectures. Whereas researchers in fact recommend implementing prompts to ensure students process those video lectures sufficiently, open questions about the types of prompts and role of students’ engagement remain. We thus conducted an online field experiment with teacher students at a German university (N = 124; 73 female, 49 male). According to the randomly assigned experimental conditions, the online video lecture on topic Cognitive Apprenticeship was supplemented by (A) notes prompts (n = 31), (B) principle-based self-explanation prompts (n = 36), (C) elaboration-based self-explanation prompts (n = 29), and (D) both principle- and elaboration-based self-explanation prompts (n = 28). We found that the lecture fostered learning outcomes about its content regardless of the type of prompt. The type of prompt did induce different types of self-explanations, but had no significant effect on learning outcomes. What indeed positively and significantly affected learning outcomes were the students’ self-explanation quality and their persistence (i.e., actual participation in a delayed posttest). Finally, the self-reported number of perceived interruptions negatively affected learning outcomes. Our findings thus provide ecologically valid empirical support for how fruitful it is for students to engage themselves in self-explaining and to avoid interruptions when learning from asynchronous online video lectures.

Video-based learning is widely used today in both formal education and informal learning in a variety of contexts. Videos are especially powerful for transferable skills learning (e.g. communicating, negotiating, collaborating), where contextualization in personal experience and ability to see different perspectives are crucial. With the ubiquity of widely available video content, video-based learning is seen as one of the main strategies to provide engaging learning environments. However, numerous studies show that to learn effectively while watching videos, students need to engage actively with video content. We have developed an active video watching platform (AVW-Space) to facilitate engagement with video content by providing means for constructive learning. The initial studies with AVW-Space on presentation skills show that only students who commented on videos and who rated comments written by their peers have improved their understanding of the target transferable skill. In order to foster deeper engagement, we designed a choice architecture and a set of nudges to encourage students to engage deeper. We conducted two studies investigating the effect of nudges. The results provide evidence that the initial set of implemented nudges is effective: the students who received nudges wrote more comments, used different aspects, and there were more students who wrote comments. The nudges were particularly helpful for undergraduate students who were less experienced in self-regulated learning. Future work includes designing additional nudges to enhance student engagement by improving the quality of comments and by encouraging participation in collaborative activities.

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