Video lessons were used extensively by high school teachers during Covid-19 emergency remote learning. Now, in the wake of the pandemic, video instruction continues to play an important role in high school education. This shift has brought forth two key questions: 1) Should teachers create their own video content? and 2) Should teachers be visible in these videos?
These questions are important for teachers to consider because making video lessons is time-consuming and teachers’ preparation time is precious. Also, some teachers are resistant to making video lessons because they don’t want to be visible in the video. My research sought to find answers to these questions by investigating whether seeing the teacher and knowing the teacher in the video lesson affects learning, cognitive load and social presence.
The question of whether high school teachers should create their own video lessons is essentially unresearched. Previous research with voice familiarity in audio media has identified that voice familiarity improves learning and reduces listening effort because the voice is familiar and the speaker is trusted (McKenzie et al., 2021). Instructor visibility within video instruction has been widely researched but findings are mixed, and few studies have involved high school students. In addition, few studies have investigated a relatively new format of instruction using the transparent whiteboard, where the instructor writes and draws on a glass board.
Some studies suggested that instructor visibility could be distracting and hinder learning (see for example Stull et al., 2021; Wilson et al., 2018), while others indicated that it provided valuable social and attentional cues that facilitated learning (see for example Fiorella et al., 2019; Stull et al., 2018). These divergent findings underscored the need for a comprehensive investigation.
