Effects of Instructor's Presence on Student Attention to Video Lectures

• In Event: 66.031 - Promoting STEM Learning and Engagement Through Rich Technological Experiences

Abstract

Research is needed to understand how best to design video lectures that foster engagement and learning. This project examined the effect of the instructor’s social cues on student’s attention when viewing video lectures, thereby advancing our understanding of multimedia and social learning theories. Social cues in an instructional message are suggested to activate a social response in the learner and create a sense of partnership between the instructor and the learner (Mayer, 2014). This then motivates students to engage in generative cognitive processing. Social cues may include important aspects of the instructor’s eye gaze: direct gaze (i.e., when instructor looks at the learner) and gaze guidance (i.e., when instructor looks at information in the environment; Frischen, et al., 2007). Students’ attention when learning from video lectures should be affected by these social cues.

The participants were 64 undergraduate students (age: M = 19.0, SD = 1.82). The experiment used a pretest-posttest design with two levels of one between-subjects variable. Thirty-four students received a science video lecture with weak social cues and 30 students received a video lecture with strong social cues. The materials included two versions of a 20-minute video lecture, a pretest, two posttests, and a concept test. The two video lessons were matched in content and length but differed in the instructor’s social cues. The video lecture with strong social cues (strong group) utilized a method where the instructor always faced the audience, allowing both direct gaze and gaze guidance cues. The video lecture with weak social cues (weak group) utilized a method where the instructor turned away from the students to write on the board, allowing only direct gaze cues. Both video lectures were delivered to students on a Tobii T60 eye tracker.

When the instructor was looking into the camera (direct gaze), students’ attention to the instructor did not differ between the groups, U(64) = 399.5, Z = 1.49, p = .14, d = 0.41. When the instructor was looking toward the board (gaze guidance), students in the strong group invested significantly less time attending to the board than those in the weak group, U(64) = 80.5, Z = 5.78, p < .001, d = 1.88. Learning performance was not statistically different between the groups on problems solving, F(1,61) = 0.12, MSE = 0.01, p = .73, ηp2 < 0.01, or concept questions, U(64) = 380.5, Z = 1.85, p = 0.06, d = 0.62. Although attention to the instructor’s direct gaze cues did not differ between the two groups, attention to the instructor when he was gazing toward the board suggests that the instructor’s face may be a potential distraction to students. However, learning did not differ between the groups, although we note that the strong group showed a trend for lower performance on the concept test.

Authors

• Andrew T. Stull, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Logan Fiorella, University of Georgia

• Richard E. Mayer, University of California - Santa Barbara