The positivity principle: do positive instructors improve learning from video lectures?

The positivity principle states that people learn better from instructors who display positive emotions rather than negative emotions. In two experiments, students viewed a short video lecture on a statistics topic in which an instructor stood next to a series of slides as she lectured and then they took either an immediate test (Experiment 1) or a delayed test (Experiment 2). In a between-subjects design, students saw an instructor who used her voice, body movement, gesture, facial expression, and eye gaze to display one of four emotions while lecturing: happy (positive/active), content (positive/passive), frustrated (negative/active), or bored (negative/passive). First, learners were able to recognize the emotional tone of the instructor in an instructional video lecture, particularly by more strongly rating a positive instructor as displaying positive emotions and a negative instructor as displaying negative emotions (in Experiments 1 and 2). Second, concerning building a social connection during learning, learners rated a positive instructor as more likely to facilitate learning, more credible, and more engaging than a negative instructor (in Experiments 1 and 2). Third, concerning cognitive engagement during learning, learners reported paying more attention during learning for a positive instructor than a negative instructor (in Experiments 1 and 2). Finally, concerning learning outcome, learners who had a positive instructor scored higher than learners who had a negative instructor on a delayed posttest (Experiment 2) but not an immediate posttest (Experiment 1). Overall, there is evidence for the positivity principle and the cognitive-affective model of e-learning from which it is derived.

Benefits of Writing an Explanation During Pauses in Multimedia Lessons.

Generative learning theory posits that learners engage more deeply and produce better learning outcomes when they engage in selecting, organizing, and integrating processes during learning. The present experiments examine whether the generative learning activity of generating explanations can be extended to online multimedia lessons and whether prompts to engage in this generative learning activity work better than more passive instruction. Across three experiments, college students learned about greenhouse gasses from a 4-part online lesson involving captioned animations and subsequently took a posttest. After each part, learners were asked to generate an explanation (write-an-explanation), write an explanation using provided terms (write-a-focused-explanation), rewrite a provided explanation (rewrite-an-explanation), read a provided explanation (read-an-explanation), or simply move on to the next part (no-activity). Overall, students in the write-an-explanation group (Experiments 2 and 3), write-a-focused-explanation group (Experiment 2), and rewrite-an-explanation group (Experiment 3) performed significantly better on a delayed posttest than the no-activity group, but the groups did not differ significantly on an immediate posttest (Experiment 1). These results are consistent with generative learning theory and help identify generative learning strategies that improve online multimedia learning, thereby priming active learning with passive media.