Trends in Student Viewing Habits

Trends in student viewing habits

Steven Crawford, District Director of eLearning at the Maricopa Community Colleges, put together an informative webinar for Quality Matters on multimedia best practices and student viewing patterns. 

Highlights:

  • Steven references  a study completed by EDX Links to an external site. shows that there are cliffs at 6 minutes (which corresponds with other learning theories) and then the next cliff is 15-20 minutes. Personally, I have issues with this study, it doesn't differentiate between different disciplines of study, levels of students, etc. I feel you should make your videos as long as you think they need to be, use the analytics to see where your students are dropping off in viewing, and make adjustments from there.  Questions of length isn't the only question. We should also consider what content is going on in the video. How do we engage and how do we motivate? 

graph that shows a significant drop off in viewership after 6 minutes and 15 minutes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other points that came from the study include:

  • Many instructors are hesitant of showing their face on camera. This study mentions that while students like to know about their instructor, showing your face during every video isn't necessary. Students don't care. 
  • The study also found that faculty who replace publisher generated learning materials with instructor created materials enhance the instructor's teaching presence and students tend to see them as the expert in the content. 
  • In a new study by Harvard University Links to an external site., researchers found that students are more interested in viewing lectures, when there are active learning activities based on the lecture.  This point, while widely accepted is explained more on the next page discussing strategies for increasing viewership.