Evaluating online exercise solution videos versus a detailed explanation in class using data on students’ learning and repetition behavior

We conduct a field experiment to analyze whether online exercise solution videos are a valuable substitute for a detailed explanation in class. Using a Difference-in-Difference identification strategy with student time-fixed effects, we find that videos on-demand reduce students’ performance significantly. Splitting our sample along class attendance shows that the results are driven by those students, who attended class. Given our detailed data on students’ learning and repetition behavior we can show that only one out of four students in the treatment group watched the videos while four out of five students in the control group attended the respective class. Although we observe the typical procrastination behavior among students as the exam approaches we find no evidence that procrastination in the experiment questions compared with all other exercise questions is higher for students in the treatment group compared to the control group.