Teaching developmental psychology using online video

Abstract

This paper examines the use of an interactive online Educational Video platform with collaborative temporal Annotation (EVA), with the aim to develop undergraduate psychology students’ competence in assessing and understanding cognitive development. Two videos were developed, showing children being assessed on cognitive tests. One video was shown in a tutorial and actively guided by a teacher. The other was available online via the EVA platform with peer feedback as a voluntary supplement to the tutorial; the aim is to facilitate collaborative peer supported learning, scaffolded by pre-set prompts from teachers. Low level online users were compared with active users. Overall, students gave positive evaluations of the peer supported online learning especially among the active users. However, students in general preferred the classroom tutorial experience largely because of the presence of active teacher guidance and facilitation. Given that the online learning activities were voluntary and delivered in a competitive learning environment with minimal guidance, we believe that collaborative peer supported online learning has demonstrated educational potential in a range of contexts. We discuss factors that may facilitate greater student participation, elicit better learning outcomes, and promote learning satisfaction in an online peer learning environment.