A taxonomy of video lecture styles

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive taxonomy of video lecture styles by analyzing existing literature and contemporary courses, categorizing them based on human presence and instructional media to aid design and selection.

Contribution

It introduces a novel taxonomy of video lecture styles, providing a structured framework for understanding and designing diverse presentation formats.

Findings

Organized video lectures along two dimensions: human presence and instructional media.

Provided a design space to facilitate style selection and creation.

Enhanced comparability and analysis of video lecture styles.

Abstract

Many educational organizations are employing instructional video in their pedagogy, but there is limited understanding of the possible presentation styles. In practice, the presentation style of video lectures ranges from a direct recording of classroom teaching with a stationary camera and screencasts with voice-over, up to highly elaborate video post-production. Previous work evaluated the effectiveness of several presentation styles, but there has not been any consistent taxonomy, which would have made comparisons and meta-analyses possible. In this article, we surveyed the research literature and we examined contemporary video-based courses, which have been produced by diverse educational organizations and teachers across various academic disciplines. We organized video lectures in two dimensions according to the level of human presence and according to the type of instructional media. In addition to organizing existing video lectures in a comprehensive way, the proposed taxonomy offers a design space that facilitates the choice of a suitable presentation style, as well as the preparation of new ones.