Up Close and Personal: Examining Effects of Instructor Video Presence on Student’s Sense of Connection

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic prompted educators of all levels to adapt their courses to online formats and challenged them to create and preserve positive relationships with students. The goal of the present studies was to explore one possible tool for building student–teacher connection in an online class: prerecorded video used to deliver course content. We conducted two online experiments to test whether different forms of instructor presence in prerecorded video affect students’ sense of connection with the instructor. College-aged participants viewed a brief video segment from the first lecture of an introductory psychology course and then completed several measures regarding their sense of connection with the instructor and how much they anticipated engaging in important academic behaviors (e.g., attending class). In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to view the instructor presenting a slide deck at eye level or in a lecture hall. In Study 2, participants viewed one of these videos or a third video presenting a slide deck with an audio-only narration. We found a consistent eye-level advantage; the video of the instructor at eye level, speaking directly to the camera, elicited higher ratings of instructor likeability, immediacy, and trust, and higher expectations of participating in class than did other videos. We found few benefits of showing a visible instructor in a lecture hall compared to audio narration. Overall, our findings suggest that the way a prerecorded video features an instructor can affect students’ immediate sense of connection with that instructor and expectations to engage in the course.

Duke Scholars

Author Bridgette Martin Hard Psychology & Neuroscience