Lecturers' Hand Gestures as Clues to Detect Pedagogical Significance in Video Lectures

This paper describes a small experimental study into the relationship between the hand gestures performed by lecturers and the pedagogical significance of the corresponding parts of the lecture. Body movements have long been known to play an important role in communication, especially when teaching. The characterisation of such a relationship could be important to predict the pedagogical significance of parts of lectures in order to support a more effective delivery of online lectures (e.g., video summarisation). Videos of five lectures from different subjects were collected and the occurrence and frequency of the lecturers' hand gestures were carefully annotated together with the meaning of the gestures. A survey among 82 students was then conducted in order to establish a relationship between the annotated gestures and the pedagogical significance of their accompanying speech. It was found that three types of gesture ("pointing", "circle" and "ball") indicate that the corresponding lecture part is of particular pedagogical significance.