This paper reports on the influence of audience on the learning of students who make digital videos in science. A study was conducted into the potential learning benefits of using digital video production as a text form in Prain and Hand’s (1996) writing-to-learn in science model. Targeting a specific audience for the text is a key element of this model. Prain and Hand stated that by writing for a specific audience, science students could help clarify their own understandings by accounting for the needs of their audience. By incorporating student video production into this model, the relationship between producer and audience was intensified with subsequent benefits for the science learning of the video producers.
A mixed method design was used to study two Year 7 classes (n=23, n=24), working in groups of three (mixed ability and gender) as they investigated the functions of a balance beam. Findings from their investigations were prepared for a Year 5 audience; one class using a written text (poster making) and the other producing digital videos. Two groups from each class were video tracked throughout their investigations and were later interviewed. Transcripts from these data sources were analysed. Pretests, posttests, delayed posttests, and repeated question instruments were administered.
Results of quantitative instruments revealed learning gains were greater for the video producers than poster makers. Analysis of transcripts showed student video producers more frequently cited a connection to audience and a feeling of responsibility for the learning of their Year 5 audience than their poster making counterparts. This connection to audience through video led to regular, intense discussions among the video producers. The ability of video to capture the images and voices of the producers was cited by students as a contributing factor in this connection. Students were aware that their identities travelled with their productions to their audience. For the Year 7 video producers, knowledge of audience proved to be a powerful influence on their productions and subsequently on their own science learning.
This study has practical implications as many middle years students now have access to digital video production technologies in their science classrooms. Our ‘digital native’ (Pransky, 2001) students will expect to use it. This study illustrates that digital video can enhance an already productive strategy of producing a text for a specific audience.