What Matters Most for Learning From Online Videos, Seeing the Instructor’s Face or Gaze? Impact on Instructor-Student Synchrony

Abstract

Over the last decade, the prevalence of online teaching has dramatically increased. As part of their learning experience, students are expected to spend more and more time watching online videos. In this paper, we explore alternative formats for designing these videos. We use theory-driven learning principles to create videos that can specifically support students’ learning (i.e., by leveraging social theories of learning showing that joint visual attention plays a central role in knowledge building). We compare the benefits of seeing the instructor’s face and / or gaze on instructional videos using a 2x2 experimental design. We found that showing the instructor’s face had no significant effect on learning, while adding the instructor’s eye- tracking data to the video promoted conceptual understanding. We tested several mediators for learning, such as joint visual attention, joint emotional response, and movement synchrony; we found that joint visual attention played a significant mediatory role. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings and recommendations for designing online learning videos.