A Criteria-based Assessment Instrument to Assess the Quality of Explanatory Videos in Chemistry Education

The availability and use of instructional and explanatory videos are becoming increasingly important in educational contexts, e.g., due to advancing digitalization and the rising popularity of video platforms. Empirical findings from various subject areas and disciplines examine and postulate relevant quality criteria for these videos. To ensure the positive learning effects of the chosen videos, a qualitative assessment is required based on findings from media education, educational science, and (scientific) subject education. There is a significant research gap in the systematic quality assessment of explanatory videos in chemistry. As a result, an assessment instrument for recording and evaluating the quality of explanatory videos specifically for chemistry was developed. Based on a systematic literature search and a qualitative expert survey, 28 empirically founded quality criteria from media pedagogy, educational science, and science education were collected and validated based on <i>N</i> = 16 videos. The results of the expert assessments largely underline the quality and validity of the assessment instrument developed. The experts graded the given videos similarly and comparable to the quality assessment instrument, but, on average, they only used nine of the 28 identified criteria from the instrument for their video assessment, which speaks in favor of a more differentiated video evaluation by the assessment instrument. The instrument also includes the option of setting individual priorities and is widely applicable to different video formats (e.g., experimental videos) for the subject area of chemistry. Furthermore, all of the studies provide many indications of high user-friendliness, satisfaction, comprehensibility, and ease of use of the assessment instrument.