Can videos affect learning outcomes? Evidence from an actual learning environment

We examine the effect of an innovation in an educational context, a class of 500 + first-year economics students at a well-known Australian university. We study whether introducing content in the form of a multimedia presentation has a detectable effect on specific categories of student knowledge. The multimedia presentation has a narrator presenting concepts with images, words, and worked examples. Our key outcome measure is the probability of answering questions correctly on a mid-term test. A quasi-experimental design is followed to offer a causal interpretation of the results. We find that the multimedia presentation markedly increases students’ academic outcomes on the test compared to those that did not view the presentation, especially in regards to procedural and evaluative knowledge. An additional survey reveals gains in students’ metacognitive knowledge. These findings suggest that multimedia presentations contribute to improved student learning outcomes and offer valuable options at a time of increased online course delivery. The findings also highlight the relevance of investing in education and resources to develop the necessary design skills among academics and staff. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version of this article contains supplementary material available 10.1007/s11423-022-10147-3.