What Conditions can Promote Undergraduates’ Learning from Instructional Videos? Effects of Language Use and Cognitive Engagement Support for the Case of Conceptual Understanding of Part-whole Structures in Statistical Information

Instructional videos play an increasingly important role in subject-matter education. They can enhance conceptual understanding by connecting representations and providing language to explain ideas. However, since videos are typically consumed in a receptive manner, eliciting sufficient cognitive engagement poses a particular design challenge. This controlled trial investigates design conditions and individual use factors that promote learning with videos using a two-phase instructional macro-design: a video was integrated into a knowledge organization phase following an exploration phase and combined with language and cognitive engagement support. In the controlled trial with N = 288 second-year undergraduate students (mathematics pre-service teachers) exploring part-whole structures in conditional probability information, we examined conditions for deepening conceptual learning by comparing four randomly assigned micro-design engagement support conditions for the knowledge organization phase: (1) video without engagement support, (2) video with segmentation, (3) video with prompts, and (4) video with prompts and interactive features. Beyond comparing these conditions, we examined students’ use of the provided learning opportunities. ANOVAs showed immediate use effects on students’ explanation correctness and academic language use but no significant differences between micro-design support conditions. A multiple linear regression model, controlling for pretest scores and pre-video language use, revealed that learning outcomes depended on students’ cognitive engagement during exploration and their academic language uptake during knowledge organization, rather than on specific micro-design support. The findings highlight implications for supporting engagement in two-phase learning environments: future designs may benefit from deliberate language input and targeted prompts that foster language uptake.