Students in mathematics-related subjects have higher drop-out rates than students in other subjects at German universities. One of the most common reasons for dropping-out relates to problems of performance and understanding (Heublein, 2014). As a result, support has become more important in educational policy in Germany (Büchele, 2018). Next to the funding of mathematics remediation courses to get individual support, students´ use of videos supporting the understanding of mathematics university course content seems to be an adequate way of reducing performance problems – and hence of reducing drop-out.
Although evidence about (mathematics) teacher students’ use of videos is rare, it is already known from school context that students use instructional videos first of all caused by conditions of learning, that is for individual support when trying to understand difficult content (RfKB, 2019). But: For being able to do so, firstly, digital skills (e.g. searching and evaluating videos) as well as interest in using digital media in general are central personal characteristics of students using videos (Redecker, 2017).
Since there are no explicit studies which focus on the use of videos among mathematics teacher students and/ or on differences between (non)using teacher students, this submission addresses this desideratum and discusses the following research questions:
Q1: Do mathematics teacher students at university use videos for learning? And how does this usage differ from students’ usage in other major subjects (native and/or first foreign language)?
Q2: Do conditions of learning (pace of instruction, cognitive activation, individual support) and/or personal characteristics (digital skills (search and evaluate videos) and interest in use digital media) – as central “reasons” for the potential use of videos – differ statistically significant between the groups of “using videos for mathematics” and “not using videos for major subjects”?