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Does subtitle size in teaching video influence learning outcomes?

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Abstract

Learning through video is an important learning method at present. In various teaching videos, subtitle size varies greatly. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the influence of subtitle size on different teaching videos. In this paper, 90 college students from a Chinese University were randomly divided into three groups: small subtitle teaching video group, middle subtitle teaching video group and large subtitle teaching video group. The experiment was conducted to explore the effect of subtitle size on learners’ cognitive load, academic performance, and learning satisfaction. The results showed that: (1) compared with the large subtitle teaching video, learners had lower cognitive load when watching small and medium subtitles teaching videos; (2) compared with the large subtitle teaching video, the learners who watched the small subtitle teaching video had better performance; (3) compared with the large subtitle teaching video, the learners who watched the small and medium subtitle teaching video had higher learning satisfaction. Based on these results, this paper emphasizes the importance of subtitle size in teaching video. We suggest that the relevant departments should further refine the production standards of teaching videos; teachers should try to make teaching videos with smaller subtitles; students should choose teaching videos with smaller subtitles; researchers and technical teams should strengthen the research and development of personalized subtitle technology, so as to allow the private customization of subtitle size based on learners’ needs and preferences.

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Acknowledgements

The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. The authors wish to express their appreciation and thanks to the Dr. Xin Guan, Dr. Gaobo Zhu, and Dr. Xueming Gao for providing useful suggestions.

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  1. Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China

    Lijian Qiu & Xuezhi Liu

  2. Shaanxi Normal University, Faculty of Education, No.199 Chang’an South Road, Yanta District, Xi’an, 710062, China

    Wenzheng Zhao

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Qiu, L., Zhao, W. & Liu, X. Does subtitle size in teaching video influence learning outcomes?. Multimed Tools Appl 81, 43253–43266 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-022-13212-4

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