Introductory Videos: An Analysis of Student Use Patterns

In a distance-learning environment, an introductory video allows students to see and hear their instructor, affording the instructor the ability to efficiently communicate course information to a large number of students. This study considers the use of these introductory videos and made use of the Blackboard course management system (Blackboard, 2008) during two consecutive academic semesters to track and evaluate student usage patterns. Results found students used the video throughout the semester, although an ARIMA (autoregressive integrated moving average) analysis found a significant negative trend. An additional exploratory analysis conducted with a linear regression and t-test found that student use of the video during the first half of the spring semester was significantly greater than during the second half of the semester. This finding may suggest that this type of video, a general course introduction, is much more useful to students early in a semester than it is in the latter half of a course. Additionally, this type of video may be viewed in the second half of a course to access more specific content information to assist with assignments but does not require frequent viewing.