Introduction: the added-value categories
The 27 categories of video described in Table 0.1 can add substantial value to educational multimedia (termed instructional multimedia in North America). The term multimedia is used here to apply both to a computer package that includes video segments and to a multiple media course with video as an ingredient.
The categories are video techniques and teaching functions that exploit video’s distinctive strengths and that print cannot achieve as effectively. In fact for most categories, neither can audio alone, inside the multimedia package, nor even a face-to-face teacher outside the package. The categories are divided into three domains.
- Assisting LEARNING and SKILLS development
- Providing (vicarious) EXPERIENCES (the role most often assigned to TV in many institutions)
- NURTURING (motivations, feelings)
The claim that the categories in Table 0.1 add distinctive value to learning has not been researched empirically. Rather, it derives from experts’ opinions. About half the categories correspond to the ‘distinctive value video list’ drawn up in the 1980s by the UK Open University’s Broadcast Allocations Committee, with the purpose of ensuring cost-effective use of video. This list comprised the techniques and teaching functions that video could deliver distinctively well compared to other available media (as adjudged by consensus through the years). OU course teams had to make a strong case. They had to convince the committee that the learning outcomes they intended for video really did need one or more of the techniques and teaching functions in the ‘distinctive value video list’. That is, they had to demonstrate that other, cheaper media would be much less effective. Through the years, this procedure led to the compilation of 18 functions that were adjudged to exploit the strengths of video and that needed video in order to be achieved distinctively well (Bates 1984: appendix). These 18 have been expanded into the above 27 categories as a result of further deliberation.
The basis of the value-added claim for these categories is the rich symbol system of video, that is, video’s moving pictures, real-time or slow motion, real-life or diagrammatic, with synchronous narration and sound effects, camera moves and zooms, big close-ups, shot transitions, visual effects, chronological sequencing and pacing of sound and pictures (e.g. enabling the display of body language and the phrasing of speech), visual metaphor, specially constructed scale models – all of video’s presentational attributes. In most circumstances, in all of the 27 categories, these attributes make video more effective than other media.
Table 0.1 Added value video techniques and teaching functions
One exception occurs in domain 3, the nurturing domain. A well-scripted dramatized enactment on audio can sometimes evoke more realism and emotion than video – by stimulating the listener’s visual imagination. For instance, under category 3.5, engender empathy for people, video is only more effective than audio when it really is necessary to view the human behaviour. This is not always the case. Sometimes it is not even permissible because anonymity is required, for example, when portraying a case of alleged child abuse to trainee social workers.
This example has illustrated that for some categories in Table 0.1, in certain circumstances, there is a better choice of medium than video. At the other extreme, there are some categories for which there is no alternative to video – e.g. 2.6 (fast motion via time-lapse recording), whereby real life can be speeded up thousands of times.
Even though there are many such categories that manifestly cannot be achieved without film or video, there are still those who doubt that any medium can achieve added value over any other medium for any learning task. There is a body of thought that follows R.E. Clark (1983) in believing that learning is only influenced by the instructional method, irrespective of which medium is used. His widely quoted analogy was that media were ‘mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition’ (p. 445).
This position provoked spirited correspondence in the research literature, which endured for many years (in fact, the issues are still not resolved to everybody’s satisfaction). In 1994, an entire issue of the journal, Educational Technology Research and Development (volume 42, no. 2) was devoted to the debate. Clark’s contribution in that issue was provocatively entitled, ‘Media will never influence learning!’ However, despite the unrepentant title, Clark’s view was now more reasonable, namely that, ‘It cannot be argued that any given medium or media attribute must be present in order for learning to occur, only that certain media and attributes are more effi cient for certain learners, learning goals and tasks’ (p. 22).
Although this view is more reasonable than Clark’s 1983 position, it still underestimates the differences in the capabilities of different media. The truth is that Clark’s grocery truck may not be appropriate for transporting every type of food. For example, imagine audio alone attempting to describe a complicated three-dimensional shape, or print alone trying to describe a dance routine (even if many photos or diagrams were used). For a detailed rebuttal of Clark’s views, see Chapter 4.
In the same issue of ETRD, Clark’s principal opponent, Kozma, takes the more proactive view that because different media do have different capabilities, our methods must take appropriate advantage of this. He concludes that we should replace the sterile question, do media infl uence learning? with the productive question, in what ways can we use the (different) capabilities of (different) media to influence learning for particular students, tasks and situations?
Going further, it is conceivable that the different capabilities of each medium, still poorly understood, will result in powerful new educational methods (designs). In other words, the more that is learned about a medium’s distinctive capabilities (and limitations), new methods will suggest themselves to take better advantage of that medium’s potential. Conversely, the more that is learned about a medium’s limitations, the fewer will be the attempts to use it for inappropriate teaching functions. (The different capabilities and limitations of different media are discussed in Chapter 4.)
The first three chapters of this book address these issues for the medium of video. They consider those capabilities of video that have been recognized by experienced practitioners in the UK Open University and elsewhere. The treatment is not based on media research theory, but derives from a large body of practical and intuitive knowledge concerning t...
