Making Knowledge about Renewable Materials Accessible and Engaging with Educational Videos based on Instructional Design

The shift to using renewable materials is essential to help create a sustainable future on a planet with limited resources. Research and innovations in wood science are greatly improving, but findings need to reach the widest possible audience so they can be used in practice and benefit us all. Learning through watching online videos has become ubiquitous both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is important to understand how it affects viewers and to study guidelines to make educational videos more effective, both for learners and educators. Over the years, extensive research has been conducted on designing effective multimedia lessons based on the cognitive multimedia learning theory and cognitive load theory – theories that aim to inform educators on how to design learning materials in accordance with the way the human cognition works. Recently, researchers and practitioners alike have also focused on ways to engage learners and affect the emotions that could promote learning with an approach called emotional design. However, the principles of learning with video may differ depending on the subject covered and the characteristics of the learners, making it imperative to test different approaches on different populations. Deeper knowledge about renewable materials and how to work with them is vital not only for various industries, but also among the general public, who are the final users and investors in these innovations. For this reason, we developed five educational videos, with a total length of 24 minutes, with the goal of teaching people with little or no previous knowledge about wood as a building material. The videos introduced them to concepts like advantages and disadvantages of using wood-based materials in construction, service life and performance limits, wood degradation processes like weathering, wood decay, and insect damage, and how to combat them with choosing the right materials, protective design measures and maintenance. In a series of studies, we tested what effect do several instructional design interventions like the narrator’s emotional tone and the addition of same language subtitles have on learners who are learning from watching videos in their non-native language. In a globalized world with open online learning opportunities, many people who consume English learning materials are not native speakers. However, the vast majority of research of this type involves instructional materials in the native language of learners. After viewing the videos, participants completed a knowledge test on the content of the videos, asking them questions related to recognizing the presented material or retention, and to the ability to use the newly gained knowledge in novel situations, or transfer. The presentation will introduce evidence-based principles of designing effective learning materials and reveal the results of the studies. An interesting observation following one of the studies is that despite presenting the wood as a sustainable construction material, participants still held on to their presumption about using wood for construction being harmful to the environment