Instructor video presence produced no significant difference in retention or transfer of Mandarin tone distinction among true-beginner learners¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Retention performance did not differ significantly between the with and without instructor conditions. → Yu-Jr Lan 2026 q3 i? Transfer performance did not differ significantly between the with and without instructor conditions. → Yu-Jr Lan 2026 (2)

Evidence¶

Yu-Jr Lan 2026¶

Yu-Jr Lan, Emmanuel Manalo. (2026). Incorporating instructor presence in a multimedia language learning context. Instructional Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-026-09814-2

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Repeated-measures ANOVA on 50 participants who each viewed one video with and one without the instructor; retention scores were near-identical (M = 27.68 in both conditions). The study reports "no overall detectable difference in retention between the with and the without conditions"; equivalence was not tested.

"Results on the retention task was not significant, indicating no overall detectable difference in retention between the with and the without conditions (F(1, 49) = 0.29, p =.59, η² = 0.001)."

Yu-Jr Lan 2026 (2)¶

Yu-Jr Lan, Emmanuel Manalo. (2026). Incorporating instructor presence in a multimedia language learning context. Instructional Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-026-09814-2

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Same repeated-measures design; transfer items used disyllabic words not heard before. The article reports no significant difference between conditions (η2 = 0.001); equivalence was not tested.

"Results on the transfer task also showed no overall significant difference between the conditions ( F(1, 49) = 0.17, p =.687, η2 = 0.001)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Skin conductance level did not differ significantly between instructor-presence conditions, though arousal patterns appeared to vary with content difficulty
• Instructor video presence produced no significant difference in tone production correctness, acceptability, or confidence, though with-condition means were descriptively higher on correctness and acceptability — related
• Agent appearance (iconic vs realistic) shows no significant difference in retention, transfer, or interest — related
• Learners reported higher perceived learning and satisfaction and lower mental effort with the instructor video, despite no performance gains — a perception-performance gap — related
• Human embodiment in video: perceived social presence benefits learning ratings, but instructor-face inclusion shows no significant learning-performance difference, and learners prefer human over robot presenters with mixed recall — related
• Study lead instructors did not differ from non-study-lead instructors in student retention performance — related