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”? 

In June 2020, a sample of N=300 teacher students at a German university (257 female, 43 male), aged between 18 and 45 years (M=23.62, SD=3.86), participated in an online survey on using videos in teacher program. All participating teacher students study two subjects. Overall, it was stated that 114 (38%) teacher students study mathematics as one of their subjects, 171 (57%) native language (German) and 62 (20.7%) of them first foreign language (English). Within the survey, the following Likert-scales (1 = “I totally disagree”, 4 = “I totally agree”) have been administered – all based on existing scales (e.g. PISA 2015 (OECD, 2015) or Rubach & Lazarides (2019)) but slightly adapted: pace of instruction (4 Items, Cronbach’s α=.75; M=2.68; SD=.70), cognitive activation (7 Items; Cronbach’s α=.65; M=2.67; SD=.41), individual support (4 Items; Cronbach’s α=.75; M=2.71; SD=.49), search videos (3 Items; Cronbach’s α=.60; M=3.29; SD=.51), evaluate videos (3 Items; Cronbach’s α=.77; M=3.1; SD=.57), interest in use of digital media (5 Items; Cronbach’s α=.62; M=3.14; SD=.47). The first three scales assess learning conditions, the last three scales assess personal characteristics of learning.

Results Q1: Out of those teacher students studying mathematics, 101 students (88.6%) use videos and 13 (11.4%) do not use videos. Out of those teacher students studying native or foreign language, 74 (42.0%) use videos and 102 (58.0%) do not use videos, making this group far less to use videos than those who study mathematics. The frequencies differ significant (χ2(1)=62.65, p=<.001, Cramér´s V=.464). Results Q2: We conducted a t-test to assess the difference in learning conditions and/or personal characteristics. Two groups have been compared: (group 1) teacher students who use videos for mathematics (N=101) versus (group 2) students who do not use videos for any of their major subjects (N=115). In terms of learning conditions, group 1 and group 2 differ significant concerning cognitive activation (t(214)=3.61, p=<.001), with a higher mean for group 1 (low effect (cohen´s d=.24)) but not concerning pace of instruction or individual support. In terms of personal characteristics, group 1 and group 2 differ significant concerning evaluating videos (t(214)=2.63, p=.009), with a higher mean for group 1 (low effect (cohen´s d=.18)), but not concerning searching videos and interest in using digital media. Teacher students already use videos for their major subjects – for studying mathematics students hark back to those videos even more often than for studying other major subjects. Those teacher students pointing out higher cognitive activation use videos more frequently than other teacher students. In terms of personal characteristics, it was shown that those teacher students use videos who have higher digital skills. Considering the fact that mathematics teacher students have high drop-out rates and that mainly those mathematics teacher students already use videos more frequently for their individual learning support who are more cognitive activated, instructors should think about actively integrating videos in their (mathematics) courses to provide additional support for students.

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