Purpose of the Study: As online learning plays a greater role in graduate education, there is concern amongst instructors in terms of increasing student engagement with content. This apprehension is further exacerbated in the case of asynchronous, online learning. Previous research has discussed the importance of instructor-generated videos in engaging students with learning material. Method/Design and Sample: This research investigates how interactive instructional design by embedding videos within reading material helps enhance student engagement and assessment in asynchronous online learning compared to providing videos and reading material separately. Results: Results demonstrate that instructional design using a rich media blend by embedding instructorgenerated videos amongst various reading material and interactive content may help students remain focused on course content and may use different ways to understand different facets of a concept and apply them. Interestingly, while student engagement was different in the two different types of instructional design, the results suggested that the final letter grade performance of students was not different.
Heather Ulrich (Wed,) studied this question.