The Effect Of Material Difficulty And Individual Control On Learning Performance In Instructional Videos With Embedded Questions And Its Extensionality

In recent years,online instructional videos have become an important way for university students to learn on their own.To improve student engagement and learning when watching online instructional videos,educators have designed interactive videos.Among the various interactive features of instructional videos,embedded questions are an easy to design and frequently used method,but existing research is divided on the effectiveness of interactive videos with embedded questions in facilitating learning.A review of the literature reveals that the difficulty of the material selected varies considerably,and that the interaction between material control and learner self-control traits has not been addressed.Based on this,this study aims to first investigate the effectiveness of the embedded problem videos in terms of the difficulty of the materials and the learners’ own control needs.Then,given the singularity of the materials and question types in the first two experiments,the effects of different embedded question types and knowledge type scenarios were investigated in order to see if the findings of this paper could be extended to other types of instruction.All three experiments measured mental effort,internal motivation,cognitive load and physiological data during the learning process.Three experiments were included in this study: Experiment 1 explored the effect of material difficulty on the effectiveness of video instruction with embedded problems(embedded,unembedded)as a between-subjects variable and learning material difficulty(simple,complex)as a within-subjects variable.Experiment 2 explored the effects of individual self-control and learner control on the instructional effectiveness of embedded problem-based instructional videos using post-hoc grouping,categorizing individual self-control traits(high,low)as between-subject variables,and using material control style(learner control,procedural control)as within-subject variables.Experiment 3 expanded the question types and knowledge types of embedded instructional videos using question types(memorized,applied)as between-subject variables and knowledge types(declarative,procedural)as within-subject variables to explore whether the findings of Experiments 1 and 2 were extensible.The findings of the study revealed that:(1)The difficulty of the learning materials had an impact on the teaching effectiveness of the embedded instructional videos.Specifically,when learning complex and difficult videos,embedded questions can improve learning performance,while more mental effort is exerted;under different difficulty videos,the intrinsic and extrinsic cognitive load of the simple video group is smaller than that of the complex video group,and the internal motivation of the simple video group is significantly higher than that of the complex video group.Combining performance and mental effort effects,for complex instructional videos,it is necessary to embed the questions.(2)Neither the type of learner control nor the difference in self-control traits affected learning outcomes.However,for the high self-control learners,the learner control style was a better way to learn,was able to reduce their mental effort,and this reduction was due to a sense of control over the video rather than for the use of control.The high self-control group had lower extrinsic cognitive load than the low self-control group,but their associated cognitive load was higher than that of the low self-control group,with no difference in intrinsic motivation.As learner control was able to reduce cognitive load,the inclusion of learner control was also facilitative.(3)Knowledge type and embedded question type had an effect on teaching effectiveness.Learning outcomes were also better in all other conditions(with procedural knowledge significantly higher)compared to the declarative video with embedded memory questions;however,mental effort was higher for both knowledge types(memory,procedural)of the video with embedded application questions.Intrinsic and extrinsic cognitive load was lower for declarative knowledge than for procedural knowledge,and related cognitive load and internal motivation were both higher than for procedural knowledge.(4)Combining the three experiments,analysis of the physiological data all found that time-domain heart rate variability was a valid measure of intrinsic cognitive load;heart rate,low-frequency heart rate variability,and ultra-high frequency heart rate variability may be correlated with cognitive load,but more research is needed.In summary,the results of this study could theoretically provide richer data for further exploring the role of interaction methods embedded in questions on learning effectiveness and its influencing factors;practically,it could provide online educational video developers with corresponding design principles to improve the effectiveness of learners’ learning using online videos.