The effects of instructors’ on-Screen presence and gender in online courses: learning interest, teacher credibility, cognitive learning, and learning outcomes

Online courses have emerged as a prominent and increasingly influential mode of education. This study adopts a 2 × 4 between-subjects experimental design to investigate the independent and interactive effects of instructor on-screen presence and instructor gender on students’ learning experiences in online video courses. A total of 610 participants were enrolled in the study. Multiple data sources were integrated for analysis, including self-reported learning experience indices (i.e. learning interest, perceived teacher credibility, and cognitive learning), objective learning outcome scores, and eye-tracking data of instructor-focused fixation duration. The empirical results demonstrate four major findings. (i) Compared with male instructors, female instructors’ on-screen presentation significantly enhances students’ learning interest and cognitive learning performance. (ii) Instructor on-screen presence exerts a significant main effect on both learning experiences and learning outcomes, with upper-body presence yielding the most optimal performance across all indicators. (iii) Significant interaction effects between on-screen presence mode and instructor gender are observed for learning interest and teacher credibility. (iv) Upper-body presence outperforms full-body presence in improving students’ learning interest, teacher credibility, and learning outcomes. This study's findings offer empirical support for the optimised design of instructors’ visual presentation strategies in online teaching scenarios.