Enhancing Visual Learning with Keyword Captioned Video

This current study examined the effects of full captions (n = 37), keyword captions (n = 38), and no captions (n = 37) on students’ ability to gain pictorial knowledge from a 5 minutes and 52 seconds French language video. After completing a pre-vocabulary recognition test to determine the level of equality between groups, students watched the video and immediately completed a post-visual recognition test and a post-recall protocol test to determine students’ visual content gain and/or recall. Overall, the keyword captions group responded to visual questions about the video just as well as the no captions group, and somewhat better than the full captions group. In addition, the no captions group significantly outperformed the keyword and full captions groups on visual recall. Based on eye-tracking data, the more one looked within the captions field, the less one gained visually from the video. These results have implications for how one designs L2 video lessons with captions.