Abstract
Evidence regarding the benefits of an instructor’s deictic gestures in video lectures on adults’ learning may not necessarily be reflective of their effect on children’s learning. Furthermore, there is a lack evidence regarding how deictic gestures specifically affect learners’ learning process. Based in cognitive load theory, with consideration of the signaling principle and embodiment principle in multimedia learning, the present study sought to determine whether an instructor’s deictic gestures affected young adults’ and children’s learning from video lectures differently. Participants consisted of 60 college students as the young adults sample and 63 pupils as the children sample. Each participant viewed one of two video lectures, either with or without the instructor using deictic gestures. During the experiment, participants’ eye movements, prior knowledge, learning process, and learning performance were recorded and measured. The results of nonparametric tests showed that when the instructor used deictic gestures, the children paid more attention to the video content while the young adults reported a higher learning experience. Both groups demonstrated improved learning performance, regardless of age. Our findings highlight the fact that young adults and children do learn differently from video lectures with an instructor using deictic gestures. Furthermore, our findings contribute to understandings regarding the design of video lectures and video-based learning, specifically, that if an instructor is presenting the content in video lectures, they should be encouraged to use deictic gestures to improve students’ learning.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to this study as part of our research program, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
† Significance for this test was assumed at a p value of < .05 with Bonferroni correction for multiple testing.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [62007023, 62177027]; the Social Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province under Grant [2020P021]; and the Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities of China under Grant (Excellent Doctoral Thesis Cultivation Project in Central China Normal University) [2022YBZZ026].
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Jiumin Yang: Conception and design of study, drafting the manuscript, revising the manuscript critically for important intellectual content.
Fangfang Zhu: Acquisition of data, analysis and/or interpretation of data, revising the manuscript critically for important intellectual content.
Yirui Jiang: Conception, acquisition of data, analysis and/or interpretation of data.
Zhongling Pi: Conception and design of study
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Yang, J., Zhu, F., Jiang, Y. et al. Do adults and children learn differently from video lectures with an instructor’s deictic gestures?. Educ Inf Technol 28, 8377–8400 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11523-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11523-5