Exploring the Consequences on Memory of Students Who Know They Have Access to Recorded Lectures

Objective. To elucidate how students' knowledge of future access to recorded lectures impacts their ability to immediately recall, to delay recall, and to restudy information. Methods. Seventy-eight participants were randomly divided into two groups: knowledge of future access to recorded lectures after class and knowledge of no future access to recorded lectures after class. Participants viewed two mini lectures (10-12 minutes each) in a simulated classroom. Participants were told whether they would or would not be able to restudy lectures through future access to the recorded lectures just prior to their test one week later. Participants were tested immediately following the lectures and after a one-week delay. Prior to the delayed test, participants restudied one of the two lectures. The primary outcome was the participants' performance on the lecture material following immediate testing. Secondary outcomes included performance on delayed tests, performance after restudying the lectures and note-taking behavior. Results. Having access to a recorded lecture did not influence immediate recall. One week after the simulated class, reviewing videos did improve performance (d∼.70). Participants with knowledge of no future access forgot less information (d=.42) over time compared to the group that knew they had future access (d=.53); even though this latter group wrote longer notes. Conclusion. These findings suggest that there is no mnemonic-benefit to having knowledge of access to recorded classes. Reviewing recorded lectures did improve scores on an immediate test. However, participants with knowledge they had access to the recorded lectures to restudy them had larger effect sizes for loss of material.