As enrollment in online courses continues to rise, examining quality student engagement opportunities in online settings is important for their success and well-being. The current study sought to understand students’ perspectives on using interactive video lectures in fully online classes. Surveys were collected from 161 undergraduate students across two psychology and two family studies and human development online courses. All four courses used online video lectures with embedded questions and pauses to allow time for answering. The survey results report students felt the embedded questions supported their understanding of the content and kept them engaged. Students explicitly reported paying more attention to the videos because there were questions to answer. Students also appreciated the immediate feedback they received, particularly from multiple-choice questions, and felt it helped solidify what they needed to further study. Implications for future practice and research are included.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought monumental changes to life around the world, including drastic changes to how traditional face-to-face (F2F) American university courses have been conducted. In Spring 2020, institutions of higher education had to move courses fully online (if they were mid-term) or in some cases end a term of F2F only to return from break fully online in a span of a week. This brought major adjustments for those teaching on campus, particularly in thinking about how to provide active learning opportunities for students in what was for many a new teaching modality. This study focuses on changes I made to my three F2F courses during the Spring 2020 semester to preserve active learning for students while providing flexibility of course completion. It also focuses on four courses adjusted from a planned F2F offering to online during the Fall 2020 semester. It particularly focuses on use of interactive video lectures (IVLs) as a replacement for traditional in-class sessions in the spring semester and the use of IVLs as part of a flipped classroom model during the four synchronous online classes during the Fall 2020 semester. Below, I outline a summary of research on active learning in college classes and the emerging, yet small, body of research on the use of IVLs in classes.