The instructor's gaze guidance in video lectures improves learning.

Instructor behaviour is known to affect learning performance, but it is unclear which specific instructor behaviours can optimize learning. We used eye‐tracking technology and questionnaires to test whether the instructor's gaze guidance affected learners' visual attention, social presence, and learning performance, using four video lectures: declarative knowledge with and without the instructor's gaze guidance and procedural knowledge with and without the instructor's gaze guidance. The results showed that the instructor's gaze guidance not only guided learners to allocate more visual attention to corresponding learning content but also increased learners' sense of social presence and learning. Furthermore, the link between the instructor's gaze guidance and better learning was especially strong for participants with a high sense of social connection with the instructor when they learned procedural knowledge. The findings lead to a strong recommendation for educational practitioners: Instructors should provide gaze guidance in video lectures for better learning performance. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter: Learners reported that they had to be far more focused when watching video lecture, and the learning effectiveness of video lectures was not satisfactory in educational practice.Attentional cues are non‐content information that can timely guide learners' visual attention to the information instructor mentioned.Human cues in video lectures not only inferred instructor's gestures but also inferred eye guidance. What their paper adds to this: The instructor's gaze guidance not only increased learners' level of social presence but also timely guided learners to allocate more visual attention to corresponding learning content.The instructor's gaze guidance facilitated learners' performance when learning via video lectures. The implications of study findings for practitioners: Instructor should provide gaze guidance in video lectures for better learning performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]