Using animation to stimulate learning engagement
Students’ active engagement is key for learning. A collaboration between the Adelaide Business School and Learning Enhancement and Innovation leveraged technology to enhance students’ engagement with, and learning of, key concepts.
A team of academic and professional staff designed and implemented a blended approach to facilitating student achievement of learning outcomes. This approach enabled students to make connections between synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. The team’s work was recognised with a Commendation for the Enhancement and Innovation of Student Learning in 2022. In this article, they outline one element of their innovation, animated videos, the pedagogy behind this approach, the impact, and what they learnt through the project.
Our innovation
Students’ active engagement is imperative in helping to develop and secure an understanding of key concepts, and technology can be leveraged to enhance teaching and learning. With this in mind, we developed a series of animated accounting concept videos to promote student engagement. These animated videos were initially implemented in an introductory accounting course and presented in the introduction section of each weekly page in MyUni. The animations provided a contextual summary of key concepts and skills linked to each topic’s learning outcomes.
The pedagogy
Our project was informed by design thinking about the use of animated videos to promote student engagement and active learning. The innovation lies in the use of lip-synchronised dialogue by an animated expert character, who interacts with two student characters. Throughout the sequence of videos, the student characters make connections to previous learning that implicitly encourages the viewer to do the same. The animated videos provide signalling cues (arrows and colour highlighting) to emphasise important concepts, as well as visual impressions that correspond to relevant business environments (e.g., factory floor, manufacturing process, hospital floor, and buildings).
The accounting expert and student characters engaged in discussions about accounting concepts rather than limiting the dialogue to a question-answer session. For example, the student characters engaged by offering some knowledge and seeking assistance from the expert to fill in the gaps; while in other scenarios the expert prompted the students to connect concepts and ideas. This presentation style highlights the value of teamwork and models an approach students could use to work with their peers in understanding the course. The guiding questions utilized by the animated characters were designed to motivate students to self-enquire about the subject matter and develop a deeper understanding.
Evidence of impact
Surveys and focus group discussions were utilised to probe the lived experiences, concerns, and suggestions of students. This evidence is particularly relevant as higher education is increasingly adopting online technology. 88% of respondents found the animated videos were helpful and engaged with them in learning the course content. 83% of respondents believed that the animations made their learning enjoyable and stimulated their interest in the course. These findings were corroborated by observations from the focus groups:
‘The animated videos are incredibly helpful in keeping me engaged with the course through the humour and relatable characters, while also providing in-depth information regarding concepts.’ focus group attendee
‘The animations were simple, quick, yet effective, simplifying and giving examples for otherwise seemingly difficult concepts.’
‘A lot of times, I would sort of pause the video when the person asked the question and try and answer it myself before the expert says something…..it was helpful for me.’
‘I love this [videos]! The questions are really on the money, especially the way that they answered the question and then gave it some sort of practical application, it was really helpful.’
Design modifications, including new characters and substantially revised scripts, were made based on student feedback. This approach has led to a sense of co-creation between staff and students. The innovations have been implemented across several courses and programs within the Adelaide Business School.
Key learnings
Teaching, and learning, in the 21st century are empowered by powerful technologies. We developed a series of animated accounting concept videos to promote student engagement. Students valued the dialogues, pictorial cues, and probing questions used to explain concepts. Students also appreciated the humour, and short length of the videos (about 4 minutes). Students suggested the student characters reflect people studying at the University. Accordingly, the scripts and animated characters were redesigned. Overall, we suggest that careful design, content relevance, dialectical discourse, and concise length can make animations an enjoyable and effective way of promoting student engagement and active learning.
Story from Dr Mahmud Masum and Associate Professor Janice Loftus from the University of Adelaide Business School and Paul Moss from the Learning Enhancement and Innovation.
The authors acknowledge the University of Adelaide Faculty Learning and Teaching Grant for evaluating the effectiveness of the animations and Philip Elms, Multimedia Project Coordinator, for developing the animations.