Julia Salmi

Abstract

The use of external videos to increase students’ preparation before lectures

This project introduced mandatory homework videos for a course in Economics, Microeconomics III. The videos were short external videos, chosen by the course instructor. The main goal of the intervention was to increase the students’ awareness of the topic of the coming lecture and to work as a recap material after lectures. This project focuses on the first goal and investigates if the videos helped students to prepare for lectures. The students answered seven survey questions. According to the responses, most students actually watched the videos regularly (80 %) and benefited from them (93 %). Out of all students answering the survey, 54 % reported that the videos had increased the time they spent on preparation before lectures and 26 % reported that the videos had decreased their preparation time. The results indicate that students benefit from the use of homework videos but that the channel is not necessarily the increased time in preparation.