Achievement Goals Relate to Biology Students’ Engagement With Clicker Applications Embedded in Videos and Learning

• In Event: Applying Educational Psychology Lenses to the “Curious Construct of Active Learning” in Undergraduate Science Education

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework
Design features in instructional videos can foster students' active engagement with and learning from videos. Completing generative strategies after watching videos increases learning (Fiorella et al., 2020); however, few researchers have explored how strategies support specific types of cognitive engagement with videos which, in turn, support learning. For example, completing formative assessments within videos via the use of clicker applications could prompt metacognitive monitoring, in which students might pause the video to think about their learning and rewind to review content (active engagement; Chi & Wylie, 2014). Importantly, students need productive goals (e.g., mastery approach) to effectively monitor and enact such strategies (Barron & Harackiewicz, 2001). We tested how students’ achievement goals predicted their cognitive engagement while watching videos with and without formative assessments, and how such engagement predicted learning from videos.

Method
Participants and Design: The sample (n=183) was selected from a larger study that leveraged digital trace data to understand undergraduate students’ learning in an online biology course. Students completed self-report measures in the first week of the course and their online learning behaviors were digitally traced throughout the semester.
Materials & Measures: There were 26 instructional videos designed by course instructors. Eighteen of these videos incorporated formative assessments to be completed using a clicker application as students watched the videos. The dependent measure was a 19-item course exam. The Achievement Goals Questionnaire-Revised (Elliot & Murayama, 2008) included three relevant subscales, each with three items using 7-point Likert scales: mastery approach, performance approach, and performance avoidance. Students’ digital traces of video-watching behaviors were used to reflect their engagement with videos and included counts of their total videos watched, pauses, forward scrubs, and rewinds.
Data Analysis: Hypothesized models were estimated using negative binomial adjusted structural equation models, with negative binomial links where needed, to test the relationship between achievement goals, engagement with videos, and exam performance for videos with and without formative assessment (Table 1 and Figures 1 and 2).

Results
Videos without Formative Assessment: Mastery approach goals were statistically significant predictors of more rewinding and pausing. Backwards scrubbing behaviors and total videos watched were related to increased exam performance. Pausing behaviors were related to decreased exam performance.
Videos with Formative Assessment: Again, mastery approach goals statistically significantly predicted increased rewinding and pausing; however, total videos watched was the only video-watching behavior that statistically significantly predicted increased exam performance.



Scholarly Significance
Students’ achievement goals were related to how they actively engaged with videos; however, such types of active engagement were only predictive of learning from videos that did not prompt students to complete formative assessments. Furthermore, mastery approach goals predicted significantly more rewinding behaviors, whereas performance approach goals predicted significantly fewer less rewinding behaviors and the increased use of these behaviors was related to increased exam performance. Accordingly, rewinding behaviors might function as meaningful actions prompted by motivational processes (e.g., mastery) that help students to review and understand video material.

Authors

• Shelbi Laura Kuhlmann, University of Memphis

• Kelly Hogan, Duke University

• Robert D Plumley, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Matthew L. Bernacki, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Jeff A. Greene, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Mara Evans, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill