Use of interactive storytelling trailers to engage students in an online learning environment

Lack of student engagement in online learning is reported as the major challenge contributing to poor academic performance and completion rates. When transforming an in-person undergraduate remote sensing course to online, this study implemented interactive storytelling lecture trailers (ISLTs) as a tool to effect changes in the realms of behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and student-instructor engagement. We collected survey data to examine students’ own perception of how ISLTs impacted their online learning, and analyzed students’ course participation and performance on tests. Results indicated that ISLTs enhanced some aspects of students’ behavioral engagement such as page views, effectively engaged students’ emotions when viewing ISLTs, and improved student-instructor engagement. Regarding cognitive engagement, ISLTs were able to improve short-term learning skills like remembering and applying levels of thinking. A majority of students recognized that ISLTs enhanced their learning experience and made learning more accessible, while a few considered them burdensome and overwhelming. However, there was no clear evidence indicating that ISLTs enhanced participation or promoted students’ emotional engagement in the follow-up lectures. Further, the improvement of student-instructor engagement we observed through quantitative data analysis lacked representative qualitative support. In summary, this study demonstrates the utility of ISLTs as an online learning engagement tool for stimulating students’ interest and improving their performance in lower levels of cognitive thinking. Further work is required to explore ways to further enhance students’ participation and emotional engagement throughout the semester and confirm the usefulness of ISLTs for student-instructor engagement.