Whether designing a fully asynchronous course or a hybrid/blended learning experience, you’re likely thinking about recording a video to explain an idea, tell a story, or demonstrate a skill. And, in many situations, you should (see the Envision piece Video Planning: To Record or Not to Record? if you are wondering whether video is appropriate for your unique situation). Most research shows that online students enjoy learning from video and that it can be an effective way to deliver content. Students often appreciate the opportunity to review material at their own pace and to pause, rewind, and rewatch content as needed (Boateng et. al. 2016; Brame 2016).
But that doesn’t mean that all video is created equal. Thoughtful design of your video content is crucial to ensuring that students get the most out of your materials. This article presents five tips for designing video content that engages students, informed by Everspring’s own research. For the purposes of this blog, we will consider three metrics for student engagement: plays (how many students started a video), completion rate (how far into a video students watched), and real viewership data, a metric conceptualized by Everspring (how many times the average student watched a video all the way through). Completion rate and plays are collected automatically by the Kaltura video hosting system and are described in more detail on the Kaltura Analytics Terminology page. Real viewership for a video was calculated using the following formula:
(total plays/total students)*(total plays to completion/total plays)
The videos we examined were categorized into the following types: tutorials (demonstrations of complex problems or processes), interviews (videos featuring two or more speakers in conversation), vignettes (brief videos focused on a single foundational concept, case study, real-world application, or anecdote), and explainers (mini-lectures synthesizing and/or highlighting important information).
Key Insights
1. Students watch tutorials.
If you are considering recording a tutorial video, the research suggests that your efforts may be rewarded with high student viewership. When Everspring compared user data for different types of videos, the results were pretty clear. Tutorial videos were more engaging for students than other types of videos: not only were students more likely to press play on these videos, but they were also more likely to watch them all the way through at least once. Our research revealed a lower completion rate for tutorials than explainers or interviews; however, the total plays per student for tutorials was >1, indicating that students might be more likely to rewatch these videos than explainers, interviews, and vignettes.
2. The longer the video, the lower the completion rate.
Based on our research, there appears to be an ideal range for getting students engaged in course videos. In the courses we examined, four- to six-minute videos had the highest real viewership. They also had the highest plays per student when excluding 20+ minute videos, which students often need to watch in multiple sittings. On the whole, video completion rates declined as video length increased. For this reason, we recommend keeping your videos, especially your explainer videos (which showed the strongest negative correlation between length and viewership), short. This can be achieved by focusing your videos on a single concept or idea.
3. It is easier to influence plays than completion rates.
Another element that was tested is whether the amount of video in a course (defined both as the number of videos and the total running time of videos) would significantly impact student engagement. Significant negative correlations were found between the amount of video on the one hand and average real viewership and average total views on the other. Interestingly, however, there was no significant correlation between the amount of video in a course and the average video completion rate. This suggests that the key challenge when creating course videos is not sustaining students' attention (there is little beyond video length that influences average completion rate) but getting students to press play on a video at all (views/real viewership are malleable).
We recommend the following strategies for encouraging students to press play on your videos:
- Be selective about videos. To keep the amount of video in your course to a minimum, consider other options for content delivery. See the Envision article Incorporating Multimedia in Your Course for multimedia alternatives to video.
- Use descriptive titles. Consider formatting titles as a question to grab students’ attention.
- Provide additional context where possible. If embedding your video on a webpage (in an LMS, for example), use the space around the video to explain its importance, highlight key questions or connections, or otherwise demonstrate why students should be interested in the material.
4. Students like to see their instructors on camera.
Narrating over slides is a very common approach to videos in online courses. However, when we studied how users interacted with explainer videos, we found that slides had little impact on engagement. What did seem to impact engagement was instructor footage. (This is consistent with other research, e.g., Ou, Joyner, & Goel 2019 and Simon 2021). Videos where the instructor appeared on-screen at least once performed better on all metrics than videos where the instructor didn’t appear at all. When relevant, then, consider recording with your camera as well as/instead of just with your screenshare. See Matching Video Production Style to Learning Goals for additional screenshare considerations.
5. Purposeful paired activities increase engagement.
Research shows that videos with associated active learning components tend to see higher levels of engagement from students. These components might include ungraded practice activities like practice problems, polls, or digital flashcards, or graded assignments which are explicitly connected to video content. In our study too, videos with at least one paired activity had higher plays and higher real viewership than videos without. To maximize engagement, incorporate activities that require students to synthesize material from the video, summarize their opinion on the material, or connect the video to other parts of the course.
References
Boateng, R., Boateng, S. L., Awuah, R. B., Ansong, E., & Anderson, A. B. (2016). Videos in learning in higher education: Assessing perceptions and attitudes of students at the University of Ghana. Smart Learning Environments, 3(1).
Brame, C. & Perez, K. (2017). Effective educational videos: Principles and guidelines for maximizing student learning from video content. Life Sciences Education, 15(4).
Ou, C., Joyner, D.A., & Goel, A.K. (2019). Designing and developing video lessons for online learning: A seven-principle model. Online Learning, 23(2), 82-104.
Simon, J. (2021). Video statistics, habits, and trends you need to know [New Research]. Techsmith Blog.