Social entities in educational videos: Combining the effects of addressing and professionalism

Abstract

Abstract Social entities are implemented within educational videos in order to create a stimulating learning environment that will serve for social identification and knowledge transfer. In two experiments performed for this study, university students watched an instructional video about multiple sclerosis (experiment 1) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (experiment 2). In both experiments, the lecturer s presentation was manipulated in terms of addressing (frontal versus lateral) and dress style (professional versus non-professional). The results revealed that learners who watched the videos where the frontal addressing style was used outperformed those who watched the video where the lateral addressing style was used. The professional dress style was only beneficial for retention performance in the condition where the frontal addressing style was used. The frontal addressing style and the professional dress style were also found to be beneficial in terms of cognitive load reduction and in enhancing parasocial processes.