How postgraduate students use video to help them learn

Purpose of the study: The object of this paper is to explore the literature in order to discover on what conditions a video-mediated form of instruction can be a learning instrument, the one that enhances teaching, increases the potential of improving learners’ performance and leads to a change in students’ knowledge and behaviours. Methodology: This exploration is literature based and involves a critical discussion of articles on video-based instruction and video pedagogies. Main findings: Video-based forms of teaching and learning are steadily gaining popularity in the classroom and beyond and are supported by a growing body of academic and professional literature. However, while the pedagogical use of video within a lesson has been explored, what is missing is a focus on the pedagogy within the video – the pedagogical style or design of the video that leads to learning – the transformation of information. Applications of this study: Research involving university students suggests that students conceive of video as an important element of their learning process and they will often choose to use videos for support and clarification rather than any other form of digital instruction. The conducted analysis of the research subject will eliminate concerns of instructional designers over the video design and help employ video more consciously and efficiently. Novelty/Originality of this study: In the last decade, the majority of the literature focusing on creating video for learning purposes adopt a transmission of knowledge approach. Thus, the authors focus on a list of characteristics that will facilitate the transmission of content. Few of the articles focus on learning per se. This paper discusses the results of our review of the literature that support the transmission styles of learning, the “hygiene” principles and then it explores the literature to identify the elements that enable a more transformative learning pedagogy for video