| dc.description.abstract | South Africa is a country defined by its multicultural, multilingual people. However, up to 92% of South African students are learning in a language other than their home language (L1). This places these students at a disadvantage in their education. While there exists a variety of policies that attempt to provide all South Africans with education in their L1, many indigenous African languages remain largely underdeveloped, especially within educational contexts. The current language of learning and teaching (LOLT) in South Africa, which in most cases is English, thus appears to be here to stay for the foreseeable future. In an attempt to find a viable way to assist South African students, a handful of researchers have conducted studies exploring subtitle interventions in educational contexts. These studies focus on either language learning, or facilitating content learning in the students’ non-LOLT L1. While existing studies, much like this study, find improvements in learning, they are yet to find statistically significant improvements when exposing students to subtitled educational videos. This leaves researchers uncertain whether or not subtitles will live up to their perceived educational potential. This study suggests that more can be done in order to provide subtitle-based content support for South African students in the LOLT, by expanding on the subtitle content. This approach sets this study apart from previous studies in South Africa as it explores support for content learning in the LOLT, rather than language learning or non-LOLT content learning support. This study suggests that additional (or expanded) information within subtitled educational videos could bridge potential gaps in the students’ background knowledge of a concept, which may in turn enhance their understanding of the content presented. Furthermore, the study suggests that the addition of expanded subtitles could encourage active participation in the learning experience, thus enhancing the learning that occurs. Therefore, this study tested whether altering the format of subtitle presentation from standard (a conventional subtitle) to expanded (a subtitle that allows viewers to click on highlighted concepts in order to access an elaboration of the concept’s meaning) could result in increased learning and comprehension for South African students. In order to investigate its hypotheses, this study first presented a literature review that explores what is already known about subtitles in educational contexts, the cognitive principles that should be taken into consideration when subtitling, and the relevant educational theories that informed the study. The literature review suggests that existing subtitling studies find improvements, but need to be reworked and/or redone in order to work towards statistically significant findings. Research in the deaf and hard of hearing (d/DHH) community suggests that subtitles benefit everyone and could be used in order to deepen the educational value of educational videos, by providing additional support within the subtitle itself. Cognitive theories suggest that students are capable of selecting the information they need in order to develop schemata, but that providing too much information in too many channels may hinder understanding, thus requiring the cautious selection of content. Finally, the scaffolded learning and blended learning theories suggest that students require different levels of informational support in order to assist them, and that using of a variety of media to allow for class preparation and class discussions enhances learning. The literature review informed the empirical investigation, which in turn asked first-year psychology students to volunteer to be a part of the study that investigated a novel expanded subtitle format. Participants were divided into three groups and shown three videos (one in each of the three subtitle conditions: zero or no subtitles, standard subtitles, and expanded subtitles). The subtitle conditions were randomised across the three groups in order to control for the possible confounding variables that could potentially be introduced by the video content. All participants were given a comprehension test after each viewing, and all participants were asked to complete a post-session perception questionnaire. In the final session, participants were also asked to fill in an exit questionnaire. All sessions were screen recorded in order to gain data on the participants’ access to and active engagement with the expanded subtitles. The data was explored using a strictly qualitative approach. The results of the study indicate that the expanded subtitle condition could potentially result in improved learning by encouraging active engagement with the video content, although this study is limited in terms of the conclusions it can make, as the sample was too small to conduct any statistical analyses of the data. There appears to be an improvement in comprehension test scores when the expanded subtitles were accessed, as objectively academically weaker participants outperformed objectively stronger participants who did not access the expansions. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that students preferred the expanded subtitle format to the standard subtitle format, even though it was unfamiliar due to its novelty. Participants also expressed a desire to be able to use this format more frequently in their studies in the future. This study therefore suggests that further research should be conducted in order to understand the advantages of the expanded subtitle format, and tentatively suggests that this format could be introduced in educational contexts in order to support students | en_US |
