Learning from a scientific discourse through video lessons: When gestures can’t help

The classical literature on co-speech gestures has proved their beneficial role in comprehension and learning from discourse. However, while the role of gestures in narrative discourse comprehension has been widely explored, their role in scientific discourse comprehension has been neglected and most of the literature on learning sci-ence is concerned with gestures accompanying single scientific concepts. Since instruc-tion done by video can exploit the power of gestures, our twofold aim was to explore the effect of gestures accompanying a scientific discourse delivered through video. In three experiments we ascertained whether learning from scientific discourse through videos benefits from gestures, observed or produced. The results have revealed that comprehension and learning from a scientific discourse do not improve when the teacher gestures compared to when the teacher does not gesture (Experiments 1 and 2) and that learner’s gestures, as compared to teacher’s gestures, can worsen comprehension and learning (Experiments 2 and 3). These results have implications for technology enhanced learning.