Engaging yet ineffective? A video coding tool’s impact on learning

This study investigates the use of an innovative educational tool, a video coding app, to improve students’ understanding of video coding concepts. The app was implemented in a university-level computer science course, and data were collected on students’ perceptions of the tool and their performance on knowledge tests. In this study, 7 participants conducted two practical sessions using the app. In each session, they performed a pre- and post-test evaluation. After each session, they also completed two subjective questionnaires to measure the perception of learning and usability of the tool. Results showed that the app was perceived as engaging and easy to use by students. However, analysis of test performance did not show a significant impact on learning outcomes. This suggests that the quality of experience may not always be correlated with objective results when evaluating new learning tools. As a lesson learned, we always recommend using pilot studies when evaluating the performance of new teaching tools. In addition, such studies should subjectively and objectively measure the influence of the tool on student performance.