Video enhanced multiple choice questions : personalising eLearning

Instructional videos have been successfully used to convey mathematical concepts to distance students. These videos allow the students to see and hear the mathematics, and the lecturer’s thought process, as if they were in a lecture. There is also the added advantage of being able to stop and rewind or replay until the concept is understood. While videos facilitate the students’ development of understanding, formative assessment provides both lecturer and student with an indication of the student’s understanding and mastery of a concept.For mathematics, formative assessment with handwritten feedback that indicates where the student has made a mistake is viewed as preferential. In the changing university culture few academics have the time to provide comprehensive handwritten feedback to large numbers of students for every concept presented within a subject. Further, for this feedback to be useful it needs to be returned to the student in a timely manner. The ability to provide instant feedback is one of the major advantages of online quizzes using multiple choice questions (MCQs).There are mixed attitudes towards MCQs within academia. For each attribute of MCQs, research can be found to both support and condemn it. Feedback from MCQs is undoubtedly fast but can it be effective? Using video enhanced feedback for online quizzes may provide the best of both worlds.