Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

Using video 117 
QUICK TIP: If you don’t want to see yourself in an online video 
call, open up the app on Windows called Sticky Notes and place 
a new note over the area of the screen that has your image. 
Engagement with others is a clear beneft of using online video. 
Another critical reason for using online video is that it helps you 
learn. Te cognitive theory of multimedia learning was developed 
by Professor Richard E. Mayer from the University of California 
(Mayer, 2009). Tis theory suggests that we only have two “chan-
nels” for decoding information. One channel is auditory, and one 
is visual. Each of these channels is thought to have a fnite capac-
ity, so we have to “ofoad” information from each channel into 
memory to create a representation of what we are studying. Pro-
fessor Mayer’s work shows that this construction of a representa-
tion of the information we are studying is more accessible when 
we have words and pictures together rather than words alone. In 
other words, when we add video to support the delivery of infor-
mation, it is easier for your brain to construct representations of 
what is going on. Without images or video, it is more demanding 
for your brain. Figure 6.1 summarises this. 
Te multimedia beneft of video could help explain why students 
fnd online video learning so valuable. Indeed, evidence shows that 
students who engage well with online video materials gain higher 
marks than students who do not use these videos (Carmichael, 
Figure 6.1 
Words alone are more challenging to understand than 
words with pictures 

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118 Studying online 
Reid, and Karpicke, 2018). Tere appears to be a consistent gain 
in marks by a few percentage points when students use online 
videos. Even though this might seem only a tiny amount, the few 
points could mean the diference between one grade boundary or 
another, meaning you could get a higher class of degree simply by 
engaging with the videos.