The Use of Novel Camtasia Videos to Improve Performance of At-Risk Students in Undergraduate Physiology Courses

Abstract

these concepts consume a large portion of class time. For this pilot study, it was hypothesized that online multimediaresources may improve student performance in a high-risk population and reduce the in-class workload. A narratedCamtasia video was created using PowerPoint slides of a cardiomyocyte action potential. Historically, studentperformance on an exam essay for this topic was very poor following a traditional didactic lecture (class avg. of64%). Replacement of lecture on the topic with an online video improved the class avg. on the essay by 6% and theclass median by 8% (n=198, 9 course sections). While this effect was not shown to be statistically significant(p=0.1, Student's t-test) due to a large variability in scores, it nonetheless indicated a general positive effect onstudent performance. Furthermore, the video appeared to have a large influence on lower-performing students,reducing the percentage of failing students on the essay from 38% with traditional lecture to 24% with access to thevideo. Anonymous polling of the students indicated the video was helpful in visualizing the process and allowingrepetition of material. While creation of multimedia resources may require significant instructor preparation time,these results suggest that the time invested may be advantageous to student success, particularly for at-risk students.