As the evolution of instructional design continues to quickly evolve, the learning experience is becoming more subjective and aligned with the constructivist perception of learning, with more contextual and less objective learning designs (Thomas, 2010). For this reason, I am interested in critically exploring the instructional design approach used in curated video libraries and understanding how and if there is really any “design” at all.
I currently work for a large retail organization and I am responsible for building and supporting all training programs for various key categories. As a training and development department, video curated libraries have sparked our interest for the past year and a half. We have moved much of our formal training programs to an internal video hosting platform (much like YouTube), and have maintained an ongoing library of short vignettes that encompass various types of product and customer service specific training content. Although my hands-on experience with our own version of this modality has been somewhat significant in the past 18 months, the interaction has been very experimental with minimal data, research, or suitable design thinking practices in place.
Based on my experience so far, there are a number of things that I am motivated to research and understand further. For the sake of this independent critical inquiry, I want to narrow my focus to the design approach specific to the modality of curated video libraries so that I can effectively understand the following:
- Is there a specific design approach that best serves video-based learning?
- How does the design come in to play with the actual set up of the curated library? Does the interface affect the learning outcome? Playlist, tiled, auto-play etc
- What are the benefits and drawbacks of short video series?
- Is there an ability (or not) to cater to different learning styles or preferences?
- Is empathetic design used to build videos and the subsequent libraries to consider the needs of the user?
- Is design even considered or are videos simply uploaded without much thought?
- Are the elements of the design like audio, animation, and text related to the pedagogy and effectiveness of the training or is simply there for show?
In previous courses, we learned about design thinking and an article by David Merrill (2002) stuck out to me and triggered me to ask the question, “Do designers have to be a “jack of all trades” in the future and have a full understanding of the content while also being an expert in instructional design?” This makes me wonder whether or not curated video libraries can help mitigate the responsibility of the designer and shift their role to be more of a “content curator”. This ultimately leads me then to wonder how the needs of the learners are properly considered when we simply pull and post content without much focus or intention. In sum, is there a learner-centric approach taken to these video segments and are the needs and wants of the user put at the forefront, or is the ease of creation and distribution the main trigger point for organizations to leverage these tools (Mattelmaki, Vaajakallio, & Koskinen, 2014)?
As I navigate my way through the animation series our group has chosen to explore thus far, I am having a hard time identifying any consistent design associated with the video-based learning segments in the curated video library by TedEd. Some videos utilize authoring tools like synchronized lecture notes and content summaries where others use step by step visual demonstrations, text, and presentation mark-ups to enhance the learning experience (Yousef, Chatti, & Schroeder, 2014). The research I have conducted so far has shown contradicting evidence related to the effectiveness of the video-based learning design. Some studies show that video-based learning design can increase learning outcome (Calandra, Brantley, Lee, & Fox, 2008)) whereas other studies indicate no proven different when compared to traditional classroom course design (Donker, 2010).
Research has shown that learning from a video can be more effective than learning from text or audio (Maniar, Bennett, Hand, & Allan, 2008). If this is the case, what is it about the design of the video itself as well as the design of course or playlist that makes it so effective? How is pedagogy considered with video-based learning? Ultimately, the question I really want to answer:
Is there a method to the madness??
References
Calandra, B., Brantley-Dias, L., & Dias, M. (2006). Using digital video for professional development in urban schools: A preservice teacher’s experience with reflection. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education, 22(4), 137-145.
Donkor, F. (2010). The comparative instructional effectiveness of print-based and video-based instructional materials for teaching practical skills at a distance. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 11(1), 96-116.
Maniar, N., Bennett, E., Hand, S., & Allan, G. (2008). The effect of mobile phone screen size on video-based learning. JSW, 3(4), 51-61.
Mattelmäki, T., Vaajakallio, K., & Koskinen, I. (2014). What happened to empathic design?. Design Issues, 30(1), 67-77
Merrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 50(3), 43-59.
Thomas, P. Y. (2010). Learning and instructional systems design. In Towards developing a web-based blended learning environment at the University of Botswana. (Doctoral dissertation).