Generating written explanations is a popular learning strategy in an online learning environment. Students can explain to themselves (ie, self-explanations) or a peer-student (ie, instructional explanations). However, for improving learning from video lectures, it is unclear whether writing self-explanations is more beneficial than writing…

The study investigated the effect of an instructor's positive (vs. neutral) emotions in video lectures on student learning using either easy or difficult geography topics (i.e. easy: the Earth within the universe; difficult: understanding time and date calculations of Earth). The results showed that, first, students responded more positively…

This study tested the mutual effects of the instructor's eye gaze and facial expression on students' eye movements (i.e. first fixation time to the slides, percentage dwell time on the slides, and percentage dwell time on the instructor), parasocial interaction, and learning performance in pre-recorded video lectures. Students (N = 118…

Synchronous online learning via technology has become a major trend in institutions of higher education, allowing students to learn from video lectures alongside their peers online. However, relatively little research has focused on the influence of these peers on students' learning during video lectures and even less on the effect of peer…