Guiding Questions Enhance Student Learning from Educational Videos

We tested a procedure designed to enhance psychology students' learning from educational videos. Introductory psychology students (N = 127) watched a video about social psychology during a regular class session. Students in some sections of the course watched the video with no special instructions; students in other sections answered 8 guiding questions in writing while watching the video. After viewing the video, students took a test containing video-related and textbook-related questions. As predicted, students who received guiding questions scored significantly higher on the video-related questions than did those in the control group; there was no effect of experimental condition on students' performance on the textbook-related questions.