Investigation of the Effect of Students’ Nodding on Their Arousal Levels in On-Demand Lectures

Due to COVID-19, various lecture styles are being explored. On-demand lectures are attracting increasing attention due to advantages such as being able to watch without restrictions due to location and time. In contrast, on-demand lectures have disadvantages, such as no interaction with the lecturer, so the quality of on-demand lectures should be improved. Our previous study showed that when participants nod without showing their faces in a real-time remote lecture, their heart rate state changes to arousal and nodding can increase arousal. In this paper, we hypothesize that nodding during on-demand lectures increases participants’ arousal levels, and we investigate the relationship between natural and forced nodding and the level of arousal based on heart rate information. Students taking on-demand lectures rarely nod naturally, so we used entrainment to encourage nodding by showing a video of another participant nodding, and by forcing the participants to nod when the other participant nodded in the video. The results showed that only participants who nodded spontaneously changed the value of pNN50, an index of the arousal level, which reflected a state of high arousal after one minute. Thus, participants’ nodding in on-demand lectures can increase their arousal levels; however, the nodding must be spontaneous, not forced.