Using audiovisual TV interviews to create visible authors that reduce the learning gap between native and non-native language speakers

Can archives of audiovisual TV interviews be used to make authors more visible to students, and thereby reduce the learning gap between native and non-native language speakers in college classes? We examined students in a college course who learned about one scholarʹs ideas through watching an audiovisual TV interview (i.e., visible author format) and about another scholarʹs ideas through reading a formal text description (i.e., invisible author format). For the invisible author, native language speakers scored significantly higher than the non-native language speakers on a corresponding exam question (i.e., a cognitive measure), generated more words on the exam question (i.e., a motivational measure), and mentioned the authorʹs name more often in answering the exam question (i.e., an affective measure). For the visible author, the groups did not differ on any of these measures. These findings provide evidence for the idea that making the author visible through audiovisual TV interviews can eliminate the learning gap between native and non-native language speakers.