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.

How various uses for video have grown in higher education between 2014and 2020. (Data from 2017 was left out due to a problem with data collection.) Source: "The State of Video in Education 2020" from Kaltura

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.