Connections Seminar: Enhancing student performance and engagement with subtitles in educational video

The use of video in education has accelerated rapidly in the past decade owing to technological developments as well as pedagogical and institutional change. Students now regularly interact with educational video, especially in blended and online courses. These videos, however, represent a language and accessibility barrier to the learning process, especially for those who need language support or study in a foreign language. Subtitles (interlingual and intralingual) represent a unique solution, and despite indications of their ability to enhance performance, this potential has yet to be realised due to methodological and technological limitations.

This seminar will report on a project that aims to determine the sustained efficacy of subtitles to support and enhance performance and engagement for English first and second language students over short and long-term durations. It will  look to identify the scalability of machine-generated subtitling against human benchmarks in a range of real-world education contexts. This seminar will also present a state-of-the-art critical review of the scientific literature and industry applications and share ways in which existing tools can be used off the shelf. It will also pave a way forward for evidence-based best practice for the inclusive and effective usage of video in education.

This presentation aligns with the Education Focussed Community of Practice "Online Resources for Transforming Teaching and Learning at UNSW". More information around this project and contact details can be found on EF Central.

This presentation aligns with the Flipped Classroom Community of Practice. More information around this community of practice can be found on the Flipped Classroom Community of Practice Moodle course site.

About Stephen

Stephen Doherty is Deputy Head of School in the School of Humanities & Languages, and Co-Director of the Language Processing Laboratory. Focussing on the psychology of language and technology, his work investigates human and machine language processing using online and offline methods, mainly eye tracking and psychometrics. His research has been supported by UNSW, the Australian Research Council, Science Foundation Ireland, the European Union, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, NSW Health, and other industry collaborations.