Objective. To elucidate how students' knowledge of future access to recorded lectures impacts their ability to immediately recall, to delay recall, and to restudy information. Methods. Seventy-eight participants were randomly divided into two groups: knowledge of future access to recorded lectures after class and knowledge of no future access to recorded lectures after class. Participants viewed two mini lectures (10-12 minutes each) in a simulated classroom. Participants were told whether they would or would not be able to restudy lectures through future access to the recorded lectures just prior to their test one week later. Participants were tested immediately following the lectures and after a one-week delay. Prior to the delayed test, participants restudied one of the two lectures. The primary outcome was the participants' performance on the lecture material following immediate testing. Secondary outcomes included performance on delayed tests, performance after restudying the lectures and note-taking behavior. Results. Having access to a recorded lecture did not influence immediate recall. One week after the simulated class, reviewing videos did improve performance (d;.70). Participants with knowledge of no future access forgot less information (d5.42) over time compared to the group that knew they had future access (d5.53); even though this latter group wrote longer notes. Conclusion. These findings suggest that there is no mnemonic-benefit to having knowledge of access to recorded classes. Reviewing recorded lectures did improve scores on an immediate test. However, participants with knowledge they had access to the recorded lectures to restudy them had larger effect sizes for loss of material.

Objective. The objective of this study elucidated the impact of students knowing they have future access to recorded lectures on their ability to remember information presented during lecture.Methods. Seventy-eight participants were divided into two groups: knowledge of future access to recorded lectures after a simulated class and knowledge of no future access to recorded lectures after a simulated class. Participants viewed fifty minutes of videoed lecture. For the early lecture material, participants were instructed whether they would or would not have future access to the recorded lectures for restudy just prior to their test 1 week later. For the late lecture material, participants were instructed they would not have future access. Participants were tested both immediately following the lectures and after a one-week delay. The primary outcome was the participant's performance on the late lecture material following immediate testing. If participants had preserved cognitive resources (eg, memory, attention) because of future access to recorded lectures, performance was expected to be higher on late lecture material. Conclusion. These findings suggest knowledge of future access to recorded lectures did not enhance the ability of participants to remember other information and therefore, may not free-up cognitive resources that could be used for other tasks within the classroom.