The effect of research video abstract presentation style on viewer comprehension and engagement

This study investigated the effect of video abstract (VA) presentation style (slideshow versus animation) on viewer comprehension and user engagement. Video abstracts, short video presentations of journal articles, were selected and used in a randomized between-subjects experiment (N = 290) with Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) participants. The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML) informed the selection of VAs. Barrett’s Taxonomy of Cognitive and Affective Dimensions of Reading Comprehension (Barrett’s Taxonomy) was used to develop comprehension measures focused on recall and summarization, and user engagement was measured using a questionnaire. The study found that: 1) comprehension outcomes did not vary between slideshow and animation style VAs, 2) animation VAs were perceived to be more engaging than slideshow VAs, and 3) user engagement was weakly negatively correlated with comprehension scores. In other words, animation VAs attracted viewers with their content, but did not lead to increased comprehension. In fact, viewers in the study who reported higher levels of engagement had slightly lower comprehension outcomes.