How instructors influence learning with instructional videos - The importance of professional appearance and communication

Since distance learning takes on an ever-greater role in educational settings, learning from instructional videos has gained enormous popularity in research. In this vein, there is an ongoing discussion whether the instructor should be visible throughout the video and if so, how the instructor should be designed. Under the premise that the perceived professionalism of the instructor act as social cue activating social schemata, the appearance and communication were identified as important characteristics of the instructor. The current experiment (N = 107 university students) manipulated the professionalism of a video lecturer in a two factorial between-subjects design in terms of appearance and communication (professional vs. non-professional). Contrast analysis revealed that professional congruence between appearance and communication significantly fostered para-social processes, intrinsic motivation and reduced extraneous cognitive load. In addition, learning performances in retention and transfer were enhanced when the instructor had a professional appearance and professional communication. Mediation analyses were performed in order to better explain the effects of professional coherence on learning. The results of this study should help instructional designers and teachers to make their videos for learning purposes as useful as possible.