The relationship between instructional scaffolding strategies and maintained situational interest

ABSTRACT

Although widely used, video lectures may have negative effects on maintaining student interest. When content is presented in video lectures, information processing issues can contribute to a decrease in interest and engagement. One solution is to scaffold instruction so that information is processed efficiently, and interest is maintained. While extant research examines two known scaffolding strategies (strategic and conceptual) in isolation, the current study combines the two to see if a more complete instructional scaffolding model leads to higher levels of maintained situational interest. A group of university students studying online in South Korea (n = 2,183) were surveyed about their perceptions of the way in which scaffolding occurred in their courses, with items focusing on the presence of the following: explanatory direct instruction early in the lectures, reduction of instructional support involving worked examples in the heart of the lecture (conceptual scaffolding) and an overall separation of content in a simple to the complex manner (strategic scaffolding). The results show a positive relationship between these combined instructional scaffolding strategies and the maintained situational interest of the students. Therefore, these strategies can be used to maintain student interest and engagement with online learning materials.

KEYWORDS:

• Conceptual scaffolding
• direct instruction
• e-learning
• maintained situational interest
• online learning
• strategic scaffolding
• video lectures
• worked examples

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work/article is an output of a research project implemented as part of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University).

Notes on contributors

Christopher Lange

Christopher Lange is an assistant professor in the Department of British and American Humanities at Dankook University in South Korea. He has published papers on informal group work, e-learning instructional design and the effects of learning strategies within online environments. His current research is focused on the effects of cognitive load and learner control within e-learning environments. Additionally, he is interested in investigating ways of improving online instruction, design and delivery to better address the needs of e-learning students. He earned a Ph.D. in Education from Kongju National University in South Korea in 2017.

Anna Gorbunova

Anna Gorbunova is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Her research interests include understanding and exploring ways of improving online learning experience and performance through the implications of cognitive load theory.

Evgeniia Shmeleva

Evgeniia Shmeleva is a Ph.D. candidate and a Research Fellow at the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education, Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Her major research interests lie in the area of student academic dishonesty, student attrition, online and distance learning and integration of educational technologies at the secondary level of education.

Jamie Costley

Jamie Costley is an assistant professor in the Center for Sociology of Higher Education, Institute of Education at the Moscow Higher School of Economics. He is interested in a variety of topics related to how to improve learning in online environments, specifically in the areas of collaborative learning, cognitive load, and instructional design.