Effects of the Instructor's Pointing Gestures on Learning Performance in Video Lectures

Recent research on video lectures has indicated that the instructor's pointing gestures facilitate learning performance. This study examined whether the instructor's pointing gestures were superior to nonhuman cues in enhancing video lectures learning, and second, if there was a positive effect, what the underlying mechanisms of the effect might be. There were three kinds of video lectures in the study: one with the instructor's pointing gestures, one with nonhuman cues, and one without any cues. Eighty-four Chinese undergraduates were randomly assigned to view one of the three video lectures in a laboratory. As hypothesized, the results of analyses of variance showed that the instructor's pointing gestures improved learning performance more than the nonhuman cues and no-cues conditions. The pointing gestures directed the learners' visual attention to the relevant learning content of PowerPoint (PPT) slides in the video lecture. This suggests that the instructor's pointing gestures can be a valuable means to improve learning performance in video lectures, in particular PPT slides with much learning information.