The Need for Music as a Learner's Characteristic Affecting the Effects of Educational Films

This paper is about the development of applications for a more specific and therefore more effective teaching and instructional technology usage in classrooms. It investigates the relationship between a lack of music in educational films and its effect on film evaluation and interest gain in educational film topics. Results of the presented study raise the assumption of a need for music as central characteristic of learners related to the effects of educational science films: Basically, it shows that the evaluation of educational films is based on emotional as well as on factual criteria and that both dimensions are positively related to the interest of learners in the film content. Further it shows that learners with need for music,compared to their classmates that do not state a need for music, exhibit a significant worse evaluation on the film factual characteristics and a reduced class performance, as measured by reduced interest in the film topic, the research area and the motivation to carry out follow-up research on the topic. Implications are discussed.