The art of educational scriptwriting, reviewed and corrected

Derek Muller designed Veritasium - a popular science video service with tens of millions of views - as experimental proof of his doctoral thesis, which posed the question "How can we produce better science films?"

Curious to find out how effective the explanations in science films really were in terms of learning, he developed an original evaluation system that not only took into account the accuracy of the students' responses, but also the extent to which the films had a positive impact on learning.but also the degree of confidence they had in their answers, regardless of whether they were right or wrong.

What he discovered was simply staggering: according to the tests taken before and after, the students learned virtually nothing from watching "standard" science films.

These films, which they themselves rated as "clear, concise and easy to understand", had only reinforced their beliefs, even if they were wrong. They couldn't even remember correctly what had been presented to them 5 minutes earlier.

Pity!

So how could they?

Well, these "objective" films are based on a false premise: the assumption that students know nothing about the subject. On the contrary, they know a great deal about it through their interactions with the real world, even if what they do know is often scientifically false.

As a result, students don't pay attention to what they already know, and practically only notice what confirms their impressions, even if it means distorting everything to fit what they "know".

To tackle the problem, Muller produced films in which two people discuss their opposing conceptions of the same phenomenon.The students felt that these films generated confusion in their minds and were neither clear nor easy to understand. These films would not have won any popularity awards.

As a result, their test scores doubled!

The key factor

So what was the factor that brought about such a change? It seems that the mental effort required in the second type of film was vastly superior to the first, as was the level of attention required.

He apparently had the answer to his science-film scripting question: the viewer has to make an effort. A good way to do this is to start with what the viewer thinks he knows and confront it. Less easy, less pleasant, but much more effective!

For example, ask people why gravity is weaker on the Moon: most of them will tell you it's because there's no air on the Moon! A good way to start a good discussion!

In practice, it's a matter of asking several people what they think about .... and then devising explanations to first provoke doubt and then communicate the new data that will make the person open up and learn something.

This certainly applies to online courses as well as videos, as Veritasium does. With the success of its videos - over 100 million views - we'd be tempted to think so.

References

Derek Muller - The key to effective educational science videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQaW2bFieo8

Derek Muller of Veritasium Interview on The Tomorrow Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N7NfjJD6JQ

Veritasium
https://www.youtube.com/user/1veritasium