By: Inas Essa

Watching recorded lectures and learning videos during the COVID-19 pandemic has become ubiquitous and effective way of learning after face-to-face lectures and lessons became restricted at many times. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, some educators turned to asynchronous online classes to disseminate learning material. As a result, in addition to discussions and other course activities, watching and remembering information from online lecture videos has been crucial for course performance and successful learning.

Although this may provide students with the flexibility to choose when and how to watch the videos, self-regulating studying can be problematic for some students, without clearly structured classes and timeframe. That could cause a struggle to effectively and efficiently study well and comprehend the material presented to them.

In a recent study published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology by researchers from UCLA University, the researchers investigated how watching such learning videos at different speeds could affect students’ comprehension and they reached very interesting results.

High Speed and Cognitive Load

Previously, research has shown mixed results regarding how watching videos at high-speed affects comprehension. While some studies indicated that increasing the speed of videos can preserve or even enhance comprehension, others suggest that increased speed impairs comprehension.

Researchers of the new study state that it could be because of measuring comprehension immediately after watching the video, rather than using a delayed test to assure the real effect. Also, if students watch lecture videos at a faster than normal speed, this could cause high cognitive overload—the amount of information that can be held in working memory at a given time.

High-Speed Videos and Knowledge Retention

In the current study, researchers investigated how watching lecture videos at different speeds affects immediate and delayed comprehension. Results indicated that students keep information quite well when watching lectures at up to twice their actual speed, but once they exceed that limit, things begin to get a little blurry.

The researchers engaged students in a series of experiments to test how faster speeds affected learning and knowledge retention. In the first experiment, the researchers divided the 231 participants into four groups and had them watch two 13-15-minute lecture videos without being allowed to pause the video or take notes. One group watched the video at normal speed, one at 1.5 times normal speed, another at double speed, while the final group watched it at 2.5 times normal speed.

The groups were then given comprehension tests on the individual videos. The normal-speed group averaged 26 correct answers out of 40, the double-time and the 1.5-time groups scored almost the same, 25, while the 2.5-speed group did not do as well, answering only about 22 questions correctly.

To test the delayed comprehension, participants were asked to answer other tests questions one week later. The same groups were given different tests related to the two videos to assess what they had retained. The normal-speed group averaged 24 out of 40, the 1.5-speed and double-speed groups averaged 21, while the 2.5-speed students averaged 20.

"Surprisingly, video speed had little effect on both immediate and delayed comprehension until learners exceeded twice the normal speed," said lead author Dillon Murphy, a doctoral student in psychology at UCLA. After that, the researchers tested different combinations of speed-watching and normal-speed viewing of the two videos, and the results assured the same findings.

Complex Material

"College students can save time and learn more efficiently by watching pre-recorded lectures at faster speeds if they use the time saved for additional studying, but they should not exceed double the normal playback speed," Murphy said.

He added, "While our study did not reveal significant drawbacks to watching lecture videos at up to double the normal speed, we caution against using this strategy to simply save time. Students can enhance learning if they spend the time saved on activities such as reviewing flashcards or taking practice tests."

It is important to note that this strategy of speeding up videos may not be effective with especially complex or difficult course material, the researchers noted.

References

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.3899

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220111153637.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email