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Gesture in Instruction: Evidence from Live and Video Lessons

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Abstract

Previous studies have shown that teachers’ gestures are beneficial for student learning. In this research, we investigate whether teachers’ gestures have comparable effects in face-to-face live instruction and video-based instruction. We provided sixty-three 7–10 year old students with instruction about mathematical equivalence problems (e.g., 3 + 4 + 5 = __ + 5). Students were assigned to one of four experimental conditions in a 2 × 2 factorial design that varied (1) instruction medium (video vs. live), and (2) instruction modality (speech vs. speech + gesture). There was no main effect of medium: The same amount of learning occurred whether instruction was done live or on video. There was a main effect of modality: Speech instruction accompanied by gesture resulted in significantly more learning and transfer than instruction conveyed through speech only. Gesture’s effect on instruction was stronger for video instruction than live instruction. These findings suggest that there may be a limit to gesture’s role in communication that results in student learning.

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Notes

  1. The gender and ethnic distribution of the included children did not differ from the excluded children (i.e., excluded for all reasons stated in the text). The proportion of females for those included versus excluded participants was 53 % and 47 % respectively, χ²(1, N = 68) = .10, p = .75. The proportion of Caucasians for those included and excluded participants was 53 % and 54 % respectively, χ²(1, N = 76) = .01, p = .92.

  2. The pretest and posttest can be provided upon request.

  3. Children were randomly assigned to experimental conditions. However, there was variation in the number of children excluded from each experimental condition. All children completed the pretest portion of the protocol. If a child failed to solve the basic problems correctly or correctly solved some or all of the pretest problems, they were then let go from continuing the protocol. This may have led to uneven N’s in the experimental conditions.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the schools who participated in this study. We would also like to thank Vanda Chitrapongse and Hanan Abdelwahab for their help with the preparation of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Theodora Koumoutsakis

  2. Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Ruth Breckinridge Church & Saba Ayman-Nolley

  3. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Martha W. Alibali

  4. Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, MA, USA

    Melissa Singer

Authors
  1. Theodora Koumoutsakis
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  2. Ruth Breckinridge Church
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  3. Martha W. Alibali
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  4. Melissa Singer
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  5. Saba Ayman-Nolley
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Correspondence to Theodora Koumoutsakis.

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Koumoutsakis, T., Church, R.B., Alibali, M.W. et al. Gesture in Instruction: Evidence from Live and Video Lessons. J Nonverbal Behav 40, 301–315 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-016-0234-z

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