Why Closed Captions Play a Significant Role in Education?

Closed captions provide an essential service to those who are deaf or hard of hearing, but they also play a significant role in education. By displaying the audio of a video in text form, closed captions allow all viewers to follow along and understand what is being said and much more.

This article will explore the many ways in which closed captions can benefit both students and educators.

What Closed Captions Are?

Closed captions are a text version of the audio track of a video. They include all the dialogue, sound effects, and other important audio information, and they are generally displayed at the bottom of the screen. Closed captions can be turned on or off, depending on the viewer’s preference. Using closed captioning can significantly help in education matters, see below.

How Closed Captions Help Education?

Captions Clarify Video for All Students

By displaying the audio of a video in text form, closed captions allow all viewers to follow along and understand what is being said. This is especially beneficial for students who are English language learners or have difficulty understanding spoken words. Closed captions can also be a valuable tool for students who are trying to learn a new vocabulary.

In addition to helping students follow along with lectures and video content, closed captions can also make educational videos more accessible. When teachers are creating their own video content, they can add captions to ensure that all students can benefit from the material.

Students Learning Foreign Languages and ESL Benefit from Captions

ESL and foreign language students often rely on captions to help them follow along with lectures and video content. A total of 4.5 million public school students in the United States do not speak English as their first language, along with thousands of international students.

Therefore, closed captions play a vital role in making educational content accessible to all students as foreign language students can use captions to improve their reading skills as well as for understanding and improving accents and dialects.

Captions Help Students with Disabilities

Closed captions can also be a valuable tool for students with disabilities, especially for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. By displaying the audio of a video in text form, closed captions allow all viewers to follow along and understand what is being said.

Improves Reading Comprehension and Literacy

In addition to helping students with disabilities, closed captions can also improve reading comprehension and literacy skills. This is especially beneficial for students who are struggling readers whose closed captions allow them to follow along and understand what is being said, by displaying the audio of a video in text form. In addition, a study from 2019 showed that closed captions can help improve reading comprehension for struggling readers by up to 13%.

A Caption Enables Video Search Across Platforms

Closed captions also enable students and educators to search across video platforms for specific topics or keywords. This is a valuable tool for finding educational content on the internet. By searching for keywords in a captioned video, students and educators can easily find the information they are looking for.

Captions Improve Retention and Focus

In addition to helping students improve their reading comprehension and literacy skills, closed captions can also help improve retention and focus. This is especially beneficial for students who are easily distracted or have difficulty paying attention. A study from 2018 showed that closed captions can help improve retention and focus by up to 12%, which is one of the reasons why closed captions are so popular among students nowadays.

Captions Are a Part of the Law

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that all educational institutions provide closed captioning for their students. This is a federal law that applies to all schools and colleges in the United States. In addition, many states have their own laws that require closed captioning in education. For example, the state of California has a law that requires all public colleges and universities to provide closed captioning for their students.

Conclusion

Closed captions play a significant role in education by helping all students follow along and understand what is being said. In addition, closed captions can also make educational videos more accessible, aid ESL and foreign language students, help students with disabilities, improve reading comprehension and literacy skills, enhance understanding of accents and dialects, and enable search across video platforms.