The Effectiveness of Video Tape Recording in Micro-Teaching Training

Kpanja, Edward (2001). A study of the effects of video tape recording. British Journal of Educational Technology,
32, Retrieved 05/10/2009, From
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.libproxy.chapman.edu:2048/cgi-bin/fulltext/118969473/PDFSTART

The study aimed at, to investigate the effective method in teaching pre-service teachers. The study took place in Nigeria setting. The study conducted on two groups of student- teachers; the first group practiced skills through micro-teaching with the help of video recording device. The second group of teachers practiced skills through micro-teaching without the help of video recording device. Each group of teachers was twenty and the length of the lesson was 10-14 minutes. During the course of micro-teaching only a supervisor was allowed to sit and watch the performance of participating teachers, the supervisor did not interrupt the lesson but recorded the mistakes which were used to instruct and correct the teacher at the end of the lesson. The participating student-teachers were allowed to give critical analysis of the lesson through questionnaire to help the participating teachers to improve their teaching skills by correcting any weak points. The device used for improving the performance of teachers through micro-teaching was the use of video recording to record the lesson delivery. The teacher with the guidance of the supervisor listens to the recorded tape and discusses any mistakes, what was supposed to be added, omitted or done.

Method/ sample
The writer said,” every year a large number of student- teachers from various background and different states in the country are admitted into the Department of Curriculum & Educational Technology. These numbers formed the experimental population for the study.” The sample was selected on the following criteria:-
1- The student must offer education as a major course in the university.
2- The student must be studying at least one teaching subject outside the faculty of education.
3- The student must not have gone out his/her final teaching practice.

The Study
The Department of Curriculum Studies is well equipped with necessary technologies and micro-teaching is one of the basic compulsory course taken by the students and sessions are conducted mainly in the micro-teaching laboratory where students are assigned to role play the part of pupils and teachers. The role playing activities were accompanied by video recording guided by discussion and analysis by both teachers and lecturers in charge of micro-teaching course. A total of 40 students were used for the sample of two groups. The first group is twenty students carryout micro-teaching without any video recordings where as the second group of twenty students aided with video recordings. The author was trying to control the study to evaluate the final findings but the following variables are beyond the author control:-
v The difference in temperament of the university students who were selected as teachers or pupils.
v The difference in the textbooks which students read in the past on micro-teaching.
v The difference in the socio-economic of the students.

Procedures
The sampled students were not told that they were being used for any experimental study. Students also were taught by the same teacher. I think using video recordings in Nigerian setting where traditional education was dominating, had few effects on improving the teacher’s teaching skills because the use of video recording was more surprising to both teachers and pupils. They concentrated to record the teacher’s weak points, instead of reinforcing the strong points Thus might draw their attention to focusing on the video as a machine than a tool helps to make the lesson more interesting and engaging them to more interaction. Joshi in 1976 was of opinion that micro-teaching is important in training teachers and the integration of video recordings help to improve the learning of basic teaching skills.

Critiques
There is huge literature that supported the effectiveness of using the video recordings to improve teacher’s performance. However; Linman in 1980 indicated that the use of video recordings may have cosmetic effects on entire training scheme that is the students-teacher who is aware of that the lesson is being recorded by video will behave artificially. Dass in 1976 micro-teaching without video recordings would still be as effective as micro teaching which video tape was used. The reason was that many successful teachers have been able to improve their skills over the years in the absence of video equipment. He added,” the video appeared only recently in the educational scene and that a lot of successful practical teaching had been done before the invention of the video.”

Conclusion:
The result of the Study showed that the group which used the video recordings had significant improvement over the group that did not use the video recordings. Nowadays video recording is playing an important role in teaching and learning process. It has changed the ways; teachers prepare and deliver their lessons in classrooms. It has become an integral part of the instructional process.