Create Motivating YouTube Videos:
Using Dual Coding Theory and Multimedia Learning
Theory to Investigate Viewer Perceptions
AERA SIG:
Advanced Technologies for Learning
Ya-Ting
Teng
Department of Human Resource Education
University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
yteng2@gmail.com
Curtis J. Bonk
Professor, Department of Instructional Systems
Technology
Indiana University, Bloomington
cjbonk@indiana.edu
Alex J. Bonk
Sociology Department
Indiana University, Bloomington
ajbonk@indiana.edu
Meng-Fen Grace Lin
Department of Educational Technology
University of Hawaii
gracelin@hawaii.edu
Georgette M. Michko
Educational Technology and
University Outreach
University of Houston
Abstract
This
research was part of a larger study that attempted to determine why people
share, create, save, and comment on YouTube videos. It also explored
motivational and instructional design elements of such shared online video. For
this study, six videos representing three different
types of videos were compared in this study (2 videos from each category): (1)
text only, (2) text, pictures, and voicing, and (3) celebrity advocacy. There were 113 respondents randomly sent
to one of these six Web-based
surveys. As predicted by dual coding theory and multimedia learning theory, participants preferred videos which had multiple
media elements-text, pictures, and voice. Such media rich videos were deemed to
be more creative and engaging.
Create
Motivating YouTube Videos:
Using
Dual Coding Theory and Multimedia Learning Theory
to
Investigate Viewer Perceptions
In the past few years,
people have begun to
reconsider the way that Internet technology can improve human life and education. The
Web 2.0, the second generation of Web technology, has been created to promote
the concept of rich user experiences
and collective intelligence (O’Reilly, 2005). Among the Web 2.0 sites, YouTube has revolutionized the use of Internet by bringing shared online video into everyday life.
In 2005, YouTube capitalized on the fact that the Flash viewer was ideal for
viewing videos (Downes, 2008). As Green noted, “Flash allows Web users to post
videos in a convenient format that is not constrained to platform-specific
players or applications. YouTube further enhances this advantage by allowing
users to upload their video in almost any format and have it converted into
Flash video” (Green, 2006, para. 8). These innovations reduce the cost and barriers to create and
share videos online. As a result, many now see the immense potential to use YouTube
and other shared online video resources in education.
Educational Uses of YouTube
Videos
When it comes to
perspectives on teaching and learning, YouTube is generating
waves of new opportunities in
K-12, higher education, workplace learning, and
e-learning. For instance, Christopher Conway, a professor in
Latin American literature and culture, used YouTube videos to provide
background contexts for students to see the ways in which the legacy of the
19th-century Venezuelan Liberator, Simon Bolívar, remains alive today (Conway,
2006). Beyond individual instructors, many universities create their own
channels on YouTube and share their lecture videos with the world as a way of
academic outreach, such as Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT).
As aforementioned examples,
YouTube quickly transformed the traditional way of using videos in teaching and
learning. No longer does one rely on an audio-visual department for course
videos. Now, YouTube videos are relied upon for supplemental course resources. A
great number of how-to videos offering procedural knowledge are now shared on YouTube.
These types of videos are prominent in areas such as cooking, music, art, and
photography. Like the Professor Conway example
above, shared online videos can also be an anchor or ender for instructional
activities (Bonk, 2008), including discussions, reflection exercises, and debates.
Such videos provide a “macrocontext” (CTGV, 1990, p. 3) or commonly viewed
experience for later learning and reflection. The macrocontext provides a
learning space that can be replayed or revisited and discussed from many
perspectives and over an extended period of time. Videos provide a common
experience for learners to discuss and reflect on concepts and ideas as in
anchored instruction
Theoretical Frameworks
Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory concerns the
relationships and the connections between verbal and nonverbal/imagery
representations and the processes that can enhance the development and
activation of memory structures. The verbal mode includes visual, auditory, and
other forms of text. The nonverbal mode contains modality-specific images for
pictures, sounds, actions, and other nonlinguistic objects. From the
perspective of the dual coding theory, the uses of concrete and personal
examples help comprehension and retention of concepts (Clark & Paivio, 1991).
Multimedia Learning Theory proposed
by Mayer moves a step forward (Reed, 2006). In Mayer’s model, the multimedia
presentation is either presented in words or pictures (Meyer, 2001). Verbal and
non-verbal representations are processed both in sensory and working memory. The
theory distinguishes sounds and visual images which are separately organized
into a verbal model and into a pictorial model. Prior knowledge is also
retrieved from long-term memory and integrated with the verbal and pictorial
models within working memory.
Both of Dual Coding Theory and Multimedia Learning Theory already
received some supports from empirical studies. Learners can recall more
information when they listened to stories while viewing relevant pictures,
comparing to a group of children who only heard the stories (Levin & Berry,
1980). Students have better retention and transfer when they were exposed under
both pictures and words materials (Moreno & Valdez, 2005). Regarding only
verbal representations, Alty, Al-Sharrah, and Beacham (2006) found that
students learn better in a presentation of both spoken text and diagrams,
comparing with a presentation with only written text and a combination with
written text and diagrams. Moreover, students have higher learning performance
in learning occurs in a voice, text, and picture combination than when just
with text and pictures (Truman & Truman, 2006).
Research Questions
Depending on the presentation of
videos, YouTube may extend learning beyond text to auditory, visual, or
episodic memory, thereby fostering student dual coding of information (Paivio,
1986) and increasing learner retention and transfer of information (Moreno
& Valdez, 2005). Given the vast educational opportunities of YouTube
videos, it is important to select appropriate videos. The criteria of picking
videos should be based on their instructional value and whether they serve
learning objectives well. In the meantime, motivating and engaging videos can
arouse student interest in a course. However, studies based on Dual Coding Theory and Multimedia Learning Theory hardly
consider the impact of different designs on learners’ perceptions. Therefore,
the purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between different
components within videos and viewers’ perception and motivation with a Web 2.0
platform.
Method
This survey took place
between August 2007 and March 2008 using SurveyShare, a Web-based survey tool. Survey participants first answered a few demographic questions.
In the middle of the survey, they randomly assigned to watch one of six videos from the list presented in Table 1. After the respondent watched a YouTube video, he or she
responded to a few more questions about that video. An assortment of techniques was employed to solicit survey respondents
(e.g., Google ad words, iPods drawings, Facebook research group, blogs, online
newsletter announcements, and free membership in the survey tool).
Three different types of videos
were compared in this study: (1) text only, (2) text, pictures, and voicing,
and (3) celebrity advocacy. While 60 total videos were in the original study,
we focused this particular study on two videos from each of these three
categories or six videos in total. Table
1 shows the characteristics of each video. The six YouTube videos were selected based
on their popularity, content, length, and overall appropriateness to the study.
The two text only videos include
background music with texts describing various facts about globalization or
digital learning. The two videos with a combination of text, pictures, and
audio (i.e., voice narration) introduce the ideas of wikis and RSS. Finally,
the two celebrity advocacy videos include Michael J. Fox backing stem cell
research and Leonardo DiCaprio supporting environmental issues. While celebrity
advocacy videos are not found in previous research, these videos have been
widely created and distributed. Theoretically, celebrities represent an image
that may have more emotional connections with viewers. In addition to the bond
with celebrities, the messages that they distributed are considered as auditory
verbal mode. Thus, this type of videos is hypothesized to be more engaging than
the text only videos.
Table 1
Characteristics of Videos
|
Category |
Title |
URL |
Views |
Length (sec) |
History (day) |
|
Text
only |
Did You know; Shift Happens–Globalization;
Information Age |
3,989,497 |
365 |
509 |
|
|
Pay
Attention |
161,637 |
461 |
453 |
||
|
Text,
pictures, and voicing |
Wikis
in Plain English |
323,715 |
232 |
398 |
|
|
Video: RSS in Plain English |
365,161 |
223 |
434 |
||
|
Celebrity
advocacy |
Michael
J. Fox |
2,785,524 |
38 |
617 |
|
|
Leonardo DiCaprio's YouTube Message |
230,114 |
109 |
337 |
Results
Our 113 survey participants comprised of 55.8% female and 44.2% male. Participants did represent all age groups (see Table 2) and education levels (see Table 3). However, they
tended to be older and more educated.
|
Table 2 Frequency of Age Groups |
||
|
Age
groups |
Frequency |
Percent
(%) |
|
Under 25 |
16 |
14.2 |
|
26-35 |
32 |
28.3 |
|
36-45 |
27 |
23.9 |
|
46-55 |
18 |
15.9 |
|
Over
55 |
20 |
17.7 |
|
Total |
113 |
100.0 |
|
Table 3 Frequency of Level of Education |
||
|
Level of Education |
Frequency |
Percent
(%) |
|
Less
than high school or high school |
5 |
4.5 |
|
Some college |
2 |
1.8 |
|
2 yrs college |
8 |
7.1 |
|
4 yrs college |
28 |
24.8 |
|
Masters |
24 |
21.2 |
|
Masters Plus |
26 |
23.0 |
|
Doctorate |
20 |
17.7 |
|
Total |
113 |
100.0 |
Regarding their experience in Web
2.0 applications, only 15.9% have created a YouTube channel and a mere 12.4% have produced a podcast. Not surprisingly, more people have
used a social network site (61.1%), created an online photo album (43.4%), and maintained a blog (41.6%). Figure 1 illustrates the various technology applications that our participants do or have done, which represents their
capabilities of new technologies. In
effect, downloading video (80.5%) was highly familiar to our respondents.
Figure 1. Percentage of the uses of technologies.
Participants
were randomly assigned to one of these six videos. Among the 113 respondents,
29 of them watched text-only videos, 41 watched videos with a combination of
text, pictures, and voicing, and 43 watched celebrity advocacy videos. In
parallel to the video rating system of YouTube, for the rating of three
different types of video, a 5-star rating was used. The result shows that the
combination were given the highest point (M = 3.78, SD
= 1.255), followed by the text only videos (M = 3.62, SD
= 1.178), and the celebrity advocacy videos (M = 3.4, SD
= 1.072). It is surprising to see that the celebrity advocacy videos were rated
even lower than the text only videos. However, a one-way ANOVA analysis on the
rating between the three types does not reveal a significant difference.
More
specifically, respondents rated whether the video includes the following four
positive aspects: (1) creative and originality, (2) current information, (3)
funny and humorous, and (4) informative and educational (See Figure 2). More
people rated the text only and celebrity advocacy videos as more informative
and current, and more selected the combination videos as not only informative
but also creative. Each of the four aspects above was either selected (score=1)
or not selected (score=0). A post hoc Tukey comparison test shows that the
combination videos are significantly more creative (F = 12.993, p<.000)
and funnier (F = 18.307, p<.000) than the text only videos and
celebrity advocacy videos. In terms of how engaging the videos are, the result
shows that the combination videos (M
= 2.17, SD = .704, where 1 = No, not engaging,” 2 = “Yes, somewhat engaging,” and 3 = “Yes, extremely engaging”) are significantly more engaging than text only videos (M = 2.14, SD = .743,) and the celebrity advocacy videos (M = 1.79, SD = .638), F = 3.776, 2, 110, p < 0.05.
Figure 2. Percentage of positive attributes.
Regarding
motivation to watch the videos, participants rated eight different motives: (1)
captivating, (2) funny or humorous, (3) heard about or seen this one before,
(4) informational or educational, (5) inspiration or motivational, (6)
interesting topic, (7) read the reviews, and (8) sharable with others. The
first three motives for the text only videos are informational, interesting,
captivating (see Figure 2). Informational and interesting are the top two
motives across three types. However, funny arises as the third most selected
motive for inspiring people to watch the combination videos, and it is
significantly selected by more people (p<.01)
than other two types. Inspirational is the third motive for viewing the
celebrity advocacy videos, and significantly more people (p<.05) chose this motive than those who watched the combination
videos. Respondents were then asked if they would recommend this video to
others or add it to their favorites. Most people watching text only videos
(62.1%) and the combination videos (61%) would recommend the video. A majority
of celebrity advocacy viewers (55.8%) would not recommend the video that they
watched.
Figure 3. Percentage of motives for watching each type.
Conclusions
The
findings indicate that Dual Coding Theory
and Multimedia Learning Theory can
predict behaviors and reactions to shared online video. The richness of the
online media influences not only how well people learn but also on viewer’s
perception and motivation to watch. People rated the videos with a combination
of text, pictures, and voicing more positive and reported the type more
engaging than the text only videos and the celebrity advocacy videos. Text only
videos are informative but dull; people rated this type of videos is less
sharable. This finding is important for educators wishing to use YouTube and
other shared online video in their classes. Such educators should attempt to
find multimedia rich videos or those with text only. Perhaps the ultimate form
of the video selected will depend on needs, subject matter, and timing within
the course.
Interestingly,
although respondents reported different positive aspects and different engaging
levels to these three types of videos, there was no significant difference
among their ratings. This finding implies that the one-dimensional rating on a
5-star scale may not be able to reflect the quality of videos. People may rate
on the 5-star scale based on different criterion. There is a need for future
research on what the 5-star scale represents and how to design a better rating
scheme to identify quality of videos, so that the rating can facilitate
instructors and students to select videos based on their educational values.
While the
richness of video seemed to be central to usability, the celebrity advocacy
videos failed to arouse more positive perceptions than the text only videos.
One possible explanation is that the two videos may not have created strong
enough emotional connections with our respondents. Future research can study a
more well-known celebrity and also control viewer’s understanding and
relatedness of the celebrity, in order to clearly identify if a celebrity
advocacy video is more engaging than a pure text video.
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