Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Paul Newbury et al.
“Has the fact that you can view the lectures online changed the number of lectures that you have
attended?”, 54% said no, 38% said they had attended less and 8% said they had attended more.
4. Conclusion
The student response to the provision of lecture material as digital video has been overwhelmingly
positive and similar to previous studies in this area (Bradley 2009, Bongey 2006, Woo 2008, etc.).
Indeed this type of result is generally to be expected as the provision of additional support
mechanisms are always likely to be viewed as a positive step by students. However, unlike previous
studies this pilot has attempted to assess engagement with a series of different capture methods. This
has demonstrated that, whilst all capture methods are considered positive additions, there is a
significant difference in the students’ response to static slides and Echo360 recorded video than there
is to the MTL video material. Not only are download rates significantly increased for MTL videos, but
the students comment that they find the videos interesting and “like TV” rather than the Echo360
content which they find less engaging and “harder to watch”. These results are in line with
expectations from Clark and Mayer’s work on Multimedia learning (Clark and Mayer 2011). Although
all formats followed the materials development framework (outlined in section 2.1), according to Clark
and Mayer’s principles they may have varying degrees of effectiveness, and if the students deem
particular formats to be less effective learning tools they would be less likely to use them. Clark and
Mayer provide seven principles of how to use multimedia to help learning and suggest that people
learn best when:
They have words and pictures rather than just words (Multimedia Principle)
Pictures are presented at the same time or next to the related text (Contiguity Principle)
They watch an animation with an auditory narration rather than text on screen (Modality Principle)
In the 2007/8 cohort, students only had access to the lecture slides without any audio content,
therefore losing the benefit of the Modality Principle. Based on Clark and Mayer's Contiguity Principle
the MTL video, in which slides and presenter are on screen together, is likely to be more effective
than the Echo360 version in which they are separated. Additionally, the use of multiple cameras in the
MTL studio allows multiple views of the presenter and slides which helps direct the students’ learning.
Thus, studio-based learning resources can be a more effective standalone learning tool and hence
students may be more motivated to use them.
Even though it may seem self evident that material produced in essentially a television studio will be
more engaging than that produced in a lecture theatre, the interesting result from this research is how
much more engaging this material seems. Download rates and qualitative analysis suggests that
students find the studio recordings significantly more valuable than those made in the lecture theatre
and that addressing issues on camera positioning and lighting have had a substantial effect.
As mentioned previously there is a reasonably high resource implication in the use of a studio for
recording lectures, but key findings can be drawn for this research which can be used to improve
standard lecture theatre recordings with systems such as Echo360. In particular the creation of
teaching material specifically aimed at lecture capture with the key aim of reducing textual content
and increasing graphics and animation can improve substantially the viewers’ experience of the
teaching material.
Although a significant concern of many academics, it seems that the provision of this high-quality
digital material has only a limited effect on attendance and the student performance overall is
increased.
5. Further work
So far this digital videoing pilot study has only been used in a few courses, and future work will
involve the rolling out of this framework to more of the subjects in the School of Informatics and
across the University, with the associated monitoring of student feedback and attendance. By
increasing the number of courses covered it is hoped that quantitative analysis of student results on
these courses compared to previous years can be made and significant improvements in attainment
shown.
576