Effect of video styles on learner engagement in MOOCs

ABSTRACT

Video lectures in massive open online courses (MOOCs) provide an opportunity to not only deliver instructional content but also engage learners. While there are many different styles of video lectures, it is not clear how video styles affect learner engagement. This study analysed and critiqued different typologies of video styles and classified MOOC video styles on a speaker-centric to media-centric spectrum. A total of 1372 survey responses were used for data analysis. The findings indicated that the ‘media-centric’ and ‘balanced’ video styles enhanced learner engagement to varying degrees in MOOCs of different study areas. In contrast, the ‘speaker-centric’ video style offered no advantages for promoting engagement in any MOOC study area. Effect sizes ranged from .03 to .07, indicating that video styles had a small to medium effect on engagement. These findings can provide new insights into the design of video lectures for different study areas in MOOCs.

KEYWORDS:

• Massive open online courses
• video lectures
• instructional videos
• engagement
• MOOC learners

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 72204072].

Notes on contributors

Ruiqi Deng

Ruiqi Deng is Associate Professor with Jing Hengyi School of Education, Hangzhou Normal University. He received a BITHM(Hons) from the University of Queensland, a MSc in Education from the University of Oxford and a PhD from the University of Queensland. His research interests are teaching and learning in higher education, educational multimedia design and technology-enhanced learning.