Evolving Trends in Teaching: Narration and Imagination vs Video Footages

Abstract

The research discussed in this paper aims to study the impact of video footages on the academic performance of students. Video footages are usually inserted into video lectures — in addition to the verbal narration of any examples by the teachers — to explain and simplify concepts. Similarly, in conventional classrooms, teachers verbally narrate examples to clarify concepts — but, in this case, students have to rely on their imagination and previous exposure to similar situations to develop an understanding of the concepts.A two-phase experiment was designed to compare these two teaching methods. A sample of 70 participants was drawn from non-psychology students in the Virtual University of Pakistan; and two groups, Group A and Group B, each with 35 participants, were formed through random assignment of the students. In the first phase of the experiment, members of Group A were taught through a 24-minute video lecture on psychology, which had four chunks of video footage in it. After the lecture, the students' academic learning was measured through a multiple-choice test with 27 items, which was developed by incorporating an equal number of questions on three levels of Bloom's taxonomy (viz. understanding, comprehension and application). The item levels were decided after agreement by three examiners who had at least three years of experience of developing such questions. In the second phase, a lecture with similar content was taught to Group B. The only difference was in the mode of delivery: in this case, the content was conveyed verbally and no video footages were used. The same test of students' learning was employed to get the scores of Group B. In addition, a qualitative study, involving data gathered through participants' feedback on the performance of the learning facilitators and weaknesses in both teaching modes was collected in order to explore the participants' perceptions and experiences of the phenomenon being studied. The results indicated that the two groups were significantly different in terms of academic achievement. The mean values suggested that those who were taught through video footages showed a higher level of academic learning than those who received a traditional verbal narration lecture. In addition, the students reported that the video footages and examples facilitated their learning, and helped them to remain focused and motivated in class. The findings have broad implications for teachers, content developers, academic policy-makers and producers involved in the production of academic content.