title: IMPACT OF INTERACTIVE VIDEO INTERVENTION IN ONLINE EFL HIGHER EDUCATION
titleType: Other
Creators: name: Konuralp, Hilmiye
Publisher: name: University of Dundee
Year: 2023

description: In online education, economics, politics, culture, and social factors can adversely affect its success. All of these have played a significant role in the decline or promotion of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Iran. Little has been written regarding the effects of these factors on online education, and this study highlights factors that affect online teaching and learning. Data collection was conducted at an Iranian state university that offered general English courses. The university was located in one of the most economically depressed regions of the country. The first part of the study involved conducting in-depth virtual interviews with EFL teachers about their perceptions of online teaching. Qualitative data were analysed thematically, representing both benefits and drawbacks. Themes were grouped under central themes: impact of a sudden transition to online education, financial influences, technology influences, teacher self-efficacy, video use and technology, video use and self-efficacy. It was clear that the university was ill-prepared to offer online courses. Despite this, the teachers were able to recognise some advantages of online education, although the challenges outweighed the benefits. The challenges were classified as either within the control of the teachers or external to them. In terms of the effects of teacher-controlled challenges, no online interventions including videos were found to minimise the negative effects caused. Teachers simply converted their traditional teaching methods to learning management systems (LMS) format without introducing any new teaching methods. The Edpuzzle application was proposed and utilised to offer interactive video activities for the experimental students in two classes over the course of a semester, while control group teachers continued to use their existing traditional methods for online EFL classes. Video interventions were developed in such a way as to avoid creating tension, insulting officials, or clashing with Iranian political or Islamic customs, and ensure suitability. Experimental teachers were then interviewed again about how effective interactive videos had been in addressing the challenges. The post-intervention qualitative data were analysed, resulting in the following central themes: teachers' choice of intervention, the influence of Edpuzzle on financial challenges, the influence of Edpuzzle on technology challenges, the impact of Edpuzzle on teachers' classroom management self-efficacy, the impact of Edpuzzle on teachers' professional self-efficacy, impact of Edpuzzle on teachers' personal self-efficacy, remaining technology issues and remaining concerns associated with self-efficacy. An online survey for both experimental and control group students was conducted. This demonstrated that interactive videos were not able to eliminate all challenges, but proved to be highly beneficial for experimental students, while control students received no exposure to online videos. In particular, the intervention was demonstrated to be effective in reducing some of the challenges students and teachers faced in regard to affective factors, including anxiety reduction, motivation enhancement, increased confidence and engagement. By providing training to teachers, the researcher was able to increase their self-efficacy in terms of digital literacy. In spite of these improvements, EFL teachers still lacked digital pedagogical knowledge and literacy skills, which are essential for offering effective online courses. Moreover, affective factors still needed to be addressed in experimental groups; however, in comparison with their counterparts in control groups, their effects were relatively smaller. In Mann-Whitney U tests, the interventions made a significant difference between experimental and control groups. In spite of economic limitations related to the ability to obtain appropriate devices for online classes, Edpuzzle's smartphone app was extremely useful in facilitating the learning process. Online general English level tests were administered to all students during pre- and post-intervention to investigate the influence the interventions had on language performance. While the interventions were not designed to directly target language proficiency or specifically focus on grammar points, the combined experimental groups demonstrated significantly greater improvements than the controls, using ANOVA and t-tests. The general conclusion was that using Edpuzzle interactive videos proved to be capable of reducing many challenges. However, external factors such as economic sanctions, employment issues, strict restrictions on online activities, and technological and Internet constraints remained and continued to contribute to the ineffectiveness of online education. In order to conduct effective online teaching, there is a need for a significant shift in government policies and resourcing, as well as innovative digital methods for the delivery of digital teaching.