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ERIC Number: EJ1470944
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Apr
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1042-1629
EISSN: EISSN-1556-6501
Available Date: 2024-11-22
Temporary Instructor Presence in Lecture Slides Does Not Enhance Online Learning
Educational Technology Research and Development, v73 n2 p717-739 2025
The empirical evidence concerning the question whether an instructor should be presented on online lecture slides is equivocal and two lines of theoretical reasoning exist. On the one hand, the instructor may distract from the content, thereby hampering learning; on the other hand, the instructor may function as a social cue that triggers a more active processing of the content, thereby fostering learning. These potential drawbacks and advantages of instructor presence might cancel each other out. We investigated whether the drawbacks can be diminished while maintaining the potential advantages, thereby improving learning with online lecture slides, when the instructor is only temporarily presented at slides where hardly any content is provided. In two experiments (N = 126; N = 219), participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions ("temporarily present" vs. "permanently present" vs. "never present"). Learning outcomes of retention and transfer, as well as subjective measures of cognitive load and social presence served as dependent variables. Overall, the results of these experiments showed no differences for the assessed dependent variables. Thus, other than expected, this study did not support the new idea that temporary instructor presence might be especially beneficial in online learning. Nevertheless, it may be premature to reject the idea of temporary instructor presence; rather, it should be further researched.
Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link-springer-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1University of Mannheim, Psychology of Education, Mannheim, Germany; 2Kiel University, Institute for Psychology of Learning and Instruction, Kiel, Germany; 3German Institute for Adult Education - Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning, Department Teaching, Learning, Counselling, Bonn, Germany