The Role of Motivation in the Use of Lecture Behaviors in the Online Classroom

Abstract

Aim/Purpose: Extant research provides conflicting information regarding the role that lecture behaviors play within e-learning lectures. This study sought to understand what role motivation plays in increasing the likelihood that students engage in lecture behaviors in general, and how motivation affects the differing types of lecture behaviors. Background: The growth of online learning has increased the importance of video lectures as a means of delivering content. As with offline lectures, students may find it useful to adapt and change the way they interact with lectures to improve their learning. One possible approach that allows students to effectively manage any challenges they have in understanding a lesson is to initiate lecture behaviors to alter the flow of information. Methodology: In the present study, a survey was administered to cyber university students (n = 2434) in order to examine at the relationship between intrinsic goal orientation (a type of motivation) and levels of lecture behaviors. Contribution: This research fills an important gap by showing the effects that motivation can have on how students interact with video lectures and suggests the ways in which students engaging in specific lecture behaviors do so in order to gain a better understanding of the content. As lecture behaviors are an important part of how students are interacting with this important and new method of teaching, it is important to understand which characteristics make students more likely to engage in lecture behaviors. Findings: Students who have higher levels of motivation are more likely to engage in lecture behaviors. These lecture behaviors may include splitting attention between media sources, pausing the video lecture, rewatching parts of the video lecture, and diverting attention to obtain better audio or visual clarity. Recommendations for Practitioners: Instead of just tracking students’ viewing progress on each course lecture video, instructors should further endeavor to measure their students’ use lecture behaviors in relation to online course lecture content. Doing so can provide valuable insight into students’ level of engagement with course lecture materials and overall levels of intrinsic goal orientation. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers need to start factoring in how student characteristics interact with instructional engagement when investigating online learning. Impact on Society: Improvement in our understanding of online learning helps improve the quality of instruction, which provides a net gain for society. Future Research: This paper is a broad overview using a survey, so future research should focus on a more detailed analysis of lecture behaviors, possibly using controlled experiments.

Investigating Self-Regulated Learning Strategies for Digital Learning Relevancy

“…Past studies have found a positive relationship between motivational belief strategies and learning performance (Kuo et al, 2013;Mikum et al, 2017;Yamada et al, 2016;Fanguy, Costley, Lange, Baldwin, & Han, 2018).…”

The Effects of Collaborative Note-Taking in Flipped Learning Contexts

“…As with more traditional forms of instruction, many e-learning environments rely on lectures as a means of instruction. As lectures are often provided asynchronously in the form of online videos, students have the ability to view videos at their convenience, and may also pause, rewind, fast-forward, or skip ahead (Costley, Fanguy, Baldwin, & Han, 2018). Some research has suggested that a learner's ability to control the flow of information reduces the cognitive demands of note-taking, as students can listen attentively to segments of the video and pause to take notes instead of having to split attention simultaneously between watching the lecture and taking notes (Balfour, 2006;Davis, Connolly, & Linfield, 2009;Marchand, Pearson, & Albon, 2014).…”

Analyzing collaborative note-taking behaviors and their relationship with student learning through the collaborative encoding-storage paradigm

“…However, modern online learning environments provide students with the following capabilities that can affect how they take lecture notes: 1) controlling the flow of information during a lecture, 2) increasing the speed of their note-taking, and 3) collaborating with classmates. As many online courses include pre-recorded lecture videos as an instructional component, students are able to exert some measures of control over the pacing of instruction by engaging in lecture viewing strategies such as pausing a lecture video, rewinding it, rewatching it, or skipping ahead (Fanguy et al, 2018). Such learner-controlled pacing of the contents may help to mitigate the substantial cognitive burden placed on students when trying to simultaneously listen, understand, and take notes during a lecture (Balfour, 2006;Davis et al, 2009;Marchand et al, 2014).…”

“…In many online learning environments, students are given the opportunity to engage with course instruction asynchronously, viewing pre-recorded online lecture videos at their convenience. When doing so, learners have the ability to control the flow of information from a lecture video by pausing, rewinding, re-watching, and skipping ahead as needed, and such behaviors have been shown to positively affect students' ability to take notes and to understand the topic of the lectures (Bruff et al, 2013;Fanguy et al, 2018;Veletsianos et al, 2016). For these reasons, some lecturers choose to record their live (synchronous) lectures in order to provide them to students as an online supplemental material.…”