Developing Student Oral Presentation Skills with the Help of Mobile Devices

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to examine how video review in formal (classroom) and informal (out-of-classroom) settings can impact student achievement in oral presentations. In this paper, we define video review as the use of video recording to review the oral presentations that have been recorded using equipment such as mobile devices or video cameras. Students today have increasing access to mobile devices that they can use for learning, and in Singapore, more and more students have mobile phones with video capabilities. Indeed, at the beginning of 2015, the smartphone penetration in Singapore was the highest in the world. Of the Singaporean respondents who responded to the survey conducted by Deloitte’s Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications, 90% owned a smartphone (“Smartphone Penetration,” 2015). About 97% of Singaporean residents between the ages of 15 and 24 reported using smartphones in 2013 (Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, 2013). Ho (2014) also reported that 55% of Singaporeans who own smartphones watch online videos on their phones and 66% take photographs or videos.

Although video review has been used in higher education settings in countries such as Taiwan (Wu & Kao, 2008), China (Liu & Lu, 2012), the United Kingdom (Brimble, 2008), the United States (Lane & Gottlieb, 2004; Mort & Hansen, 2010; Zick, Granieri, & Makoul, 2007) as well as Singapore (Thanasingam & Soong, 2007), the empirical evidence to support anecdotal claims, that using mobile devices for video review in a high school setting in Singapore will lead to higher achievement in oral presentations, is lacking. Implicit in this claim is also the issue of formative assessment, whether self- and peer assessment that go hand in hand with video review, with the help of mobile devices will have a greater impact on student achievement in oral presentations than video review in classroom settings or no video review. In this paper, we will review studies that looked into how video review, and self- and peer assessment have been used in formal and informal contexts. We will then describe the methodology of the present study before presenting and discussing its findings.