Face-to-face versus one-way and two-way videoconferencing: How medium naturalness and personality traits influence achievement and perceived learning?

During the last years, an increasing portion of face-to-face teaching-learning processes in the academia is being replaced with online synchronous sessions. According to the Media Naturalness Theory [1], the effectiveness of e-learning is affected by differences in naturalness level of the communication media. The present study compared between learning in a face-to-face environment and learning in two online conditions (one-way and two-way video conferencing). We examined the influence of medium naturalness and personality traits (extroversion-introversion and emotional stability-neuroticism) on students' achievements and perceived learning. A controlled experiment was conducted with 76 participants attending a lesson that was composed of several teaching-learning components: frontal lecture, instructor-students interactions, students-instructor interactions, and peer interactions. Zoom videoconferencing application, which allows spontaneous participation, was utilized for e-learning. Results indicate that for the face-to-face learning condition, achievement was higher compared to one-way videoconferencing only for fact-related questions, but not for inference questions or overall test score. We also found that low level of medium naturalness was associated with lower scores only for neurotic students. No clear evidence that links extroversion-introversion trait to academic performance was found. All aspects of perceived learning showed consistent advantage for emotionally stable participants and extroverts, compared to neurotic students and introverts.