Instructional Video Design: Investigating the Impact of Monologue- and Dialogue-style Presentations

Instructional videos are frequently used in online courses and websites. Such videos may include an instructor delivering a monologue-style presentation, or alternatively, engaging in a dialogue with a student who appears in the video alongside of the instructor. We compared three instructional video designs (N = 77), including monologue and dialogue style presentations. To obtain a comprehensive view of the impact of video design, we used a variety of measures, including eye tracking data, learning gains, self-efficacy, cognitive load, social presence, and interest. Despite eye tracking data showing that participants in speaker-visible conditions spent significantly less time on the domain content, learning and related variables were similar in all three conditions, a result we confirmed with Bayesian statistics that provided substantial evidence for the null model. Altogether, we provide evidence that learning and interest are not enhanced by a dialogue-style presentation or visual presence of the instructor. However, further work is needed to investigate the effect of other domains, speaker persona and saliency, and configuration of the speakers in the instructional video.