This article from the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching reports the results of a research study conducted by a faculty member at Texas Women’s University in which students report their experiences in both online (“OL”) and face-to-face (“F2F”) courses utilizing instructor-made videos. The article cites past studies establishing that students in OL courses learn as well as students in F2F courses (Neuhauser, 2002, et al.), noting
The more innovative instructors are in their teaching, the more they interact with students, allow students a measure of autonomy in the classroom, or create a classroom setting in which students know what they have to do to succeed, the more satisfied students will be, the better they will learn, and the more readily they will participate in class. (Finlay, Desmet, & Evans, 2004)
The faculty member and principal investigator (PI) for this study prepared 5-10 minute long videos explaining course assignments, as review for exams, to introduce topics in class, to explain the syllabus and to provide Q&A. As the author notes, response rates to the survey that forms the basis for this study was a disappointing 23% resulting in a study based on 27 respondents. The OL students were all graduate students and F2F students predominantly (83.3%) undergraduate. In addition all the respondents were women. As the author notes,
While this response rate is low, due to the exploratory nature of the inquiry, analyses were still computed and reported here.
The outcomes in this study suggest both a consistency in student responses and, while not noted in the study itself, suggest the instructor created videos that students found useful, that is to say, of sufficiently high quality to achieve their desired results. For example 100% of both OL and F2F students indicated agreement with the statement “The instructor-made videos helped me understand the material better.” Similarly none of the students found the instructor-made videos to be a waste of time. OL students reported, moreso than those in F2F classes, that the videos made students feel like they knew the instructor better and made it possible to learn better.
Both OL and F2F groups report that the videos help with learning the course material. Some sample comments include ““It absolutely enhances the learning process and gives greater depth to the expectations of the course materials,” and “The videos truly helped me to understand the difficult subject matter.” Concerning the comments of OL students specifically the study reports
“I felt like she was focusing on me,” and “Putting a face and voice definitely adds a human component,” and “I am spoiled now! I think all online classes should have instructor-made videos.” Students seemed to feel that the videos provided a more human element to their online instruction as evidenced by statements like, “I felt like I got to at least know who my professor was and a small window into their personality,” and “I felt like I was in a face to face class lecture”, and “As a student I was more willing to ask questions when I had a feeling that I ‘knew’ the instructor through the video.”
The instructor’s efforts in making the videos is itself mentioned in student comments such as “I really felt Dr. Rose cared about what her students were learning…she actually took the time to make weekly videos. Not only that, but she was willing to create additional videos as needed. Although I did not watch all the videos multiple times, there were some videos that I watched again…I liked that I could take notes, pause, and rewind videos. You can’t do that in a face-to-face lecture.”
What I take away from this study are several positive prospects for the use of instructor-made videos. They can apparently be helpful both for OL and F2F instruction; in the case of OL instruction they can bridge what otherwise may be a “personal connection” gap between the instructor and student. Given such a small number of participants the statistical outcomes of this study certainly would benefit from replication of outcomes. The PI suggests, as well, that future studies may measure actual learning outcomes as compared to this study’s design to measure student perceptions associated with positive learning outcomes. The PI includes an appendix offering suggestions for others who may wish to create videos for classroom use.
Source: Katherine Kensinger Rose, “Student Perceptions of the Use of Instructor-Made Videos in Online and Face-to-Face,” MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 5, No. 3 (September 2009): 487-495.
As we are still in the relatively early stages (in pedagogical terms) of integrating some of these newer possibilities into learning and teaching, all data, whatever its flaws, is still welcome, especially as it might provide insights for the structuring of future research projects.
Also, the way in which individuals are surveyed has implications: surveys about teaching and learning, for example, administered in a f2f setting have a much higher response rate than those administered via the web.
I think it’s also important to lok at other bodies of research that might have relevance to our understanding and assessment of the new. For example, when teachers first started using television programs in the classroom, and again, when video became much easier to integrate with the arrival of vhs recorders and tapes, scholars studied in detail, for example, how students learned from film/video, and so I think as scholars of the new, we should also be looking back and thinking about what research has already been completed at the beginning and middle of another technology cycle that might help us evaluate the value of integrating video to suppplement/complement learning via today’s technologies.
The discussions on podcasting and audio logs also reminded me of a listserv discussion a year or so ago in which a number of instructors who were active in the sixties and seventies remember being “very radical” and asking students to turn in cassette tapes with their writing assignments so that the teachers could record audio comments on their work. Plus ca change….
There was no discussion of potential self-selection bias in the article. After making the observation the response rate was low, the PI proceeded to report statistical demographic and survey response data. While the PI didn’t openly question the validity of the data, at two points in the article reasons were given for reporting the data despite the low response rate: first, as cited above, “due to the exploratory nature of the inquiry” and in the conclusion, as “its findings may be informative to instructors of online courses”.
Given the low response rate and the consistency of those responses, was there any discussion of self-selection bias?