Survey: Video Is Essential, But May Be Losing Its Luster
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/18/20
In an annual
survey
done by Kaltura,
a company that sells video applications in higher education, fewer
faculty and staff respondents agreed that video increased student
achievement (down 11 percent from last year's survey), increased the
sense of affiliation alumni felt for their institutions (down 9 percent), increased student satisfaction with learning (down 7 percent) or increased educator collaboration and professional develop
(down 5 percent). What gives? Video has become a "need-to-have"
versus a "nice-to-have," the researchers suggested. "This
year, in many cases, it's all we have. And people hate the current
situation. It's not surprising some have turned their negative
feelings about the necessity of the medium onto the medium itself."
That
said, video still plays a "positive role." Eighty-four
percent of people in colleges and universities reported that video
increased student satisfaction in learning; 78 percent said it made
on-boarding of new students smoother; and 76 percent noted that
teachers felt more satisfaction from teaching and enjoyed more
collaboration and professional development.
The
online survey was done by Kaltura in August and September 2020,
collecting responses from 537 people in colleges and universities
with roles in teaching, instructional design, IT, administration,
media and video production and other jobs on campus, including a
smattering of students. The goal of the survey was to understand how
schools are using video and what impact it's having on education.
Just
three in 10 institutions (31 percent) are fully virtual; the rest
have some in-person activities. Among all of them, the most common
instructional set-up was the use of fully remote virtual classrooms,
mentioned by two-thirds (63 percent) of respondents. Other formats
used by a majority of schools included pre-recorded at-home lecture
capture (58 percent), hybrid classrooms (56 percent) and live
broadcast at-home lecture capture (54 percent).
Video
usage took multiple forms. The top five were remote teaching and
learning, mentioned by eight in 10 people (83 percent), lecture
capture (69 percent), student assignments (59 percent), virtual
office hours (57 percent) and supplementary course material (57
percent). The greatest growth, the report noted, was seen in areas
that supported increased remote learning (which expanded by 28
percent) and communication among colleagues (which nearly doubled,
growing by 92 percent).
Additional
growth was also seen in video creation done by students. The number
of schools that reported that at least half of their students created
video rose from 38 percent in 2019 to 45 percent in 2020.
In
spite of the broad proliferation in the use of video on campus, a big
portion of instructors still need more help. Twenty-seven percent
said interactive video creation tools weren't available but needed,
28 percent said they needed staff to assist with video creation and
31 percent said there was a need for a dedicated recording studio.
No
matter how sick people are of video, most don't want to go back to
the way education was before. On a scale of zero to 100 percent, 68
percent told researchers they'd like some blend of traditional
instruction with some mix of virtual innovations. More than a quarter
(27 percent) advised completely rethinking how education was
delivered. Just 5 percent would like to return to the past.
"Video
is now one of the most critical educational technologies, and without
it, learning during COVID-19 would not have been possible," said
Kaltura Co-founder and President, Michal Tsur, in a statement. "Video
has become the venue for social interaction and learning. COVID has
allowed new education practices to evolve, which will last beyond the
pandemic and enrich instructional pedagogy, achieve greater student
engagement, results, and satisfaction."
"The
State of Video in Education 2020" is available on
the Kaltura website.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.