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Difficulty level moderates the effects of another’s presence as spectator or co-actor on learning from video lectures

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Abstract

Much effort has been put into the design of video lectures, but little attention has been paid to the social environment in which learning takes place. The present study addressed this gap by assigning Chinese undergraduate and graduate students who had passed the College English Test-4 to learn easy or difficult English vocabulary words in three different conditions: alone, in the presence of a peer spectator, or in the presence of a peer co-actor. In Experiment 1, participants learned difficult vocabulary words and the effects were measured by both neural activity (EEG signals, measured while participants watched the video lectures and during the generative learning activities) and behavioral evidence (learning performance assessed after having watched the video lectures: immediate and delayed test scores, cognitive load, and motivation). Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that learning alone was more beneficial than learning in the presence of a peer, as indicated by better learning performance and reduced EEG theta band power. In Experiment 2, participants learned easy (rather than difficult) English vocabulary words and outcomes were measured by immediate and delayed learning performance. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed that the presence of a peer was more beneficial than learning easy content alone. Combined data from both experiments showed that difficulty moderated the effect of social context. Participants performed best when students learned the difficult content alone, and when they learned the easy content with a peer present.

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Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (62007023; 62177027); the Research Projects of Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China under Grant (19YJC190007); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2022ZYZD04); and the Research Program Funds of the Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University under Grant (2022-05-057-BZPK01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Modern Teaching Technology (Ministry of Education), Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199 South Chang’an Road, Yanta District, Xi’an, 710062, Shaanxi, China

    Zhongling Pi

  2. College of Education for the Future, Beijing Normal University, No. 18 Jingfeng Road, Zhuhai, 519087, Guangdong, China

    Yi Zhang

  3. Wuhan Optics Valley Experimental Primary School, No. 8 Hsinchu Road, East Lake High-Tech Zone, Wuhan, 430000, Hubei, China

    Qi Yu

  4. Faculty of Artificial Intelligence in Education, Central China Normal University, No. 152 Luoyu Road, Hongshan District, Wuhan, 430079, Hubei, China

    Jiumin Yang

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  1. Zhongling Pi
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Contributions

ZP: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—Original Draft, Writing—Reviewing and Editing. YZ: Investigation, Data Curation, Visualization. QY: Software, Investigation, Methodology. JY: Supervision, Funding Acquisition.

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Correspondence to Jiumin Yang.

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There is no conflict of interest, as we conducted this study only as part of our research program.

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This research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence in Education at Central China Normal University.

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The participants were volunteers who provided written informed consent. They were informed that they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. Confidentiality was ensured by using numbers instead of names in the research data base. Data were only used for research purposes.

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Appendix

Appendix

Experiment 1

See Table 3.

Table 3 Vocabulary words in the alone, spectator, and co-actor conditions in Experiment 1
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Experiment 2

See Table 4.

Table 4 Vocabulary words used in Experiment 2
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Pi, Z., Zhang, Y., Yu, Q. et al. Difficulty level moderates the effects of another’s presence as spectator or co-actor on learning from video lectures. Education Tech Research Dev 71, 1887–1915 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-023-10256-7

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