Instructional video versus text in undergraduate learning: effects of restudy and summarization on immediate learning and delayed retention

This study examined the effects of instructional medium (animated video vs. text) and study strategy (restudy vs. summarization) on undergraduate students’ immediate learning and 1-week retention. The study was grounded in the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning, which predicts an advantage of narrated animation over text, and in generative learning theory, which predicts that summarizing supports long-term retention. In a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed-design experiment, 92 first-year students learned about the human immune system from either an animated instructional video or a word-for-word transcript of its narration. They then either restudied the material or wrote a summary, and completed a 25-item multiple-choice test immediately and 1 week later. Students who learned from the video scored higher than those who learned from the text on both the immediate test ( d = 0.73) and the delayed test ( d = 0.85). Strategy had no main effect on either test. A significant Time × Strategy interaction was qualified by a significant Time × Medium × Strategy interaction: after reading, summarizers showed greater decline than restudiers, whereas after watching the video, the two strategies showed similar decline. The interaction was small and should be replicated. The findings support the use of animated video for dynamic biological content and suggest that unguided summarizing of an expository text may not support retention better than rereading it.