Using animated videos improves the motivation to learn science

A new study at the University of Haifa found that science and technology teachers who used animated videos during class increased their students' motivation to learn and improved their thinking skills.

A new study at the University of Haifa found that science and technology teachers who used animated videos during class increased their students' motivation to learn and improved their thinking skills.

In a study conducted by Dr. Yigal Rosen, 418 students from five elementary schools and three middle schools were examined. The students of the research group studied as part of science and technology classes in an electronic learning environment that included at least three animated videos per week and the students of the control group studied with the same teacher in the "regular" method of study. The interactive learning environment included the presentation of brainpop animated videos, which were shown to the whole class or on each child's personal computer, according to the infrastructure in the school, where after each video an online quiz was shown by the teacher on the subject of the video. In addition, the students could watch additional videos from the brainpop website at home and even send questions by e-mail to experts in the field.

The purpose of the study was to check whether the integration of the videos in the lesson improves the ability to think of a higher order, and increases the motivation to learn. "Transferring knowledge and skills to new situations is one of the highest levels of thinking. It's about transferring the knowledge learned to a new and unfamiliar situation, for example, the students learned about mass, weight and Newton's laws and then were asked to use this knowledge for a completely new task: to plan a basketball court on the surface of the moon," Dr. Rosen explained the concept of "higher order thinking".

The findings show that the students who learned with the help of the animation videos significantly improved their higher order thinking ability. The elementary school students improved their score from 44.3 to a score of 63.6 (it is important to note that this is not a normal test, but a unique test to test higher-order thinking) on ​​the other hand, the students of the control group did not improve their ability to transfer knowledge to new situations - from a score of 43.6 to a score of 45. The middle school students from among the research group increased their score from 48.5 to a score of 72.5 compared to the students of the control group who increased from a score of 50.6 to a score of 51.6.

A significant change was also measured in the degree of motivation to study science and technology. The students of the experimental group increased from an average score of 3.2 (on a scale of 1-5: 1-low motivation; 5-high motivation) to an average score of 4.4. The students of the control group showed a decrease from an average score of 3.2 to an average score of 3.0.

The students even asked to draw the science and technology lesson in their class. While at the beginning of the study most of the students drew the class with the teacher in the center, after the extensive experience most of the students in the experimental group drew the student in the center of the classroom interaction. According to Dr. Rosen, the teachers themselves also stated that they had never seen the students so focused.

"The use of a learning environment that includes animated videos not only improves thinking skills and not only increases motivation, but causes a total perceptual change regarding the essence of learning," concluded Dr. Rosen.