Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, Vol 12(1), Mar 2026, 1-17; doi:10.1037/stl0000391
The present study investigated whether the inclusion of the talking head feature within a narrated slides presentation would lead to greater perceived social connectedness and influence cognitive load and learning outcomes for prerecorded lectures. Data collection took place between Fall 2020 and Spring 2022. Five hundred thirty-seven participants (80.1% female, 17.1% male, 2.8% preferred to self-describe their gender) watched a prerecorded lecture that included or excluded the instructor’s face and were asked to complete a recognition quiz following the lecture. Additionally, they completed a questionnaire measuring various cognitive and psychological measures (e.g., COVID-19 worry and grief, social presence, cognitive load, mind wandering) and a demographic survey (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity). Results suggest that presentation condition did not directly predict performance on the recognition quiz; however, cognitive load was a significant predictor of recognition quiz performance and social connectedness via cognitive load predicted performance on the recognition quiz. These findings highlight the importance of creating remote learning environments that keep cognitive distractions low while generating greater social connections to enhance learning outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)