Can You Feel the Heat? A Study on the Effects of Warmth and Clarity for Effective Scientific Communication

Online educational videos are an important aspect of learning in the modern age. Teachers need to know the most influential factors to consider when choosing these videos to show students. This paper examines the effects of speaker warmth and script clarity on perceived expertise and topic comprehension in short-form educational videos about p-values. In particular, the focus is on preparing novice students for research within the university population. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four videos and asked to complete a comprehension quiz and a questionnaire measuring warmth, clarity, and perceived expertise. This paper argues that the presence of speaker warmth and clarity can lead to greater comprehension with the possibility of reduced perceived expertise.