Video resources and peer collaboration in engineering mechanics: Impact and usage across learning outcomes

Abstract

Video resources, largely in the form of recorded lectures or problem solutions, have become fairly commonplace in higher education classroom in the past few years. Video authoring tools and distribution channels are now powerful and seamless, presenting a wide array of new opportunities for faculty to produce sharable educational assets. Video resources, when created using pedagogical and multimedia best practices, are known to be valuable learning tools for students. A variety of studies have enlisted cognitive load theory and/or the worked example effect to demonstrate efficacy in a variety of settings and disciplines. In this paper, we examine the use of video resources by students in an undergraduate engineering mechanics (dynamics) class, with a specific focus on how video consumption correlates to the achievement of specific learning outcomes. We focus on video solutions to problems, and map student perceptions about the usefulness of the videos onto the learning outcomes for the course. Then, we map each graded assignment (homework, quiz, exam) onto those same learning outcomes, and compute an average score for each student on each learning outcome. We use student background information and data about total video consumption to further enrich the discussion. The results indicate that some students find video resources crucial to their academic success, across learning outcomes, while other students extract little value from the video resources. These students indicate that they prefer to work alone, with another technology (i.e., the textbook), or in study groups rather than engaging with the technology as a partner for learning. Some learning outcomes within the course, notably those related rigid body kinematics and rigid body kinetics (via Newton's laws), reveal that students perceive high value of the videos regardless of their grade on assignments related to those outcomes. We find significant interplay with other factors reported on student background surveys, especially their views on collaboration. The data suggest that peer collaboration and video usage have a mutually-reinforcing effect, with students actively engaged in both earning better grades in the course.