Religious Ecologies Project Releases Introductory Video
Recently, the Religious Ecologies Project produced an introductory video that gives a brief history of the United States Census of Religious Bodies, an overview of this project, and the goals we hope to gain from digitizing these census schedules. Many who frequent our site may be curious about why since a great deal of this information is already in written format on our website. So, why spend time doing something that already exists?
Studies have found that not everyone’s brains absorb and retain information the same way. For some, reading a block of text, such as this blog post, is an easy way to gain information, allowing them to quickly synthesize and retain the information. For others, they better digest information when it is given to them through an audible version, typically containing some type of visual media.
Video-based learning promotes better engagement compared to those who get the same information from text-based sources. Studies have found that the human brain can process visual information faster than written text because of its innate ability to simultaneously process text, sound, and movement. It forces someone to shift from being a reader passively viewing the information to an active participant engaging with the video.
Although the benefits of videos are more immediate, this does not imply that text-based educational sources are not beneficial. Videos like the one we recently released take time to write, edit, and produce. Once published, it is hard to change and edit the information in the video, whereas with text, it can be done quickly and with minimal planning/effort. LinkedIn has a concise article about the pros and cons of video versus text-based educational content, which can be found here if you would like to explore this topic more!
This project recently implemented the introductory video as part of the onboarding and training for new research assistants. The new RAs all agreed they felt much better prepared, knowing a little history of the religious census and the research questions and goals of the project. We also showed it to our older research assistants, who have been on the project for a while. One stated that watching the video helped put the cataloging of schedules they have been working on into a new perspective. The improvement we have seen with our research assistants is not because our training was lacking but because the video engaged them in a way that traditional training methods could not. We hope those who visit our site, whether you are new to this project or a long-time user/researcher, find this helpful video, and it helps ignite a newfound interest in a topic we are very passionate about.