Regarding sizzle vs. substance. Using peripheral devices such as sex or
violence to sell ideas only works when the idea is linked to the sizzle.
For example using a sexy picture to sell cologne might work for some people.
But using it to sell physics ideas is not only ineffective, but actually
puts in a distracter which will be remembered long after the content has
been forgotten. I can remember a picture using a Barbie doll in a glass of
water to show refraction. But the doll had the refraction about the bust
line as I remember, so I know what students would notice. I found it was
bizzare. If they had instead dunked a ruler and accompanied it with a line
drawing how the rays were bent, they might have gotten better results, but
then maybe not.
The only way to truly evaluate a video is to use it and then test the
students. If the substance is not to your liking, but the students test
better then your opinion does not matter. Unfortunately most such
evaluations show null or very small results. Indeed as I pointed out the
only videos I know to show good results were peer debates, which obviously
have little sizzle. Certainly correct physics should be presented but how
to present it is a matter to be researched. The path to understanding can
be researched.
There is a recent article in AJP which shows some surprising results. It
shows that teaching field lines leads to some erroneous concepts. But field
lines do help with other concepts. So pedagogy can be very tricky.
Ostensibly correct pedagogy may lead to little results, good results, or bad
results. You have to evaluate using experiments. No amount of arguing over
it really shows what might happen. Karplus had that problem. His pile of
failed pedagogical material was huge and his pile of successful was small.
There is even a picture of this. Priscilla Laws said that her intuition is
much better, but she still has a large quota of failed ideas.
Mazur found that when pictures had people in them, the students tended to
look at the people rather than the relevant parts. So naturalistic pictures
may be destructive compared to simple drawings. Yet texts have gone to more
and more pretty pictures and made them look like web pages in an attempt to
generate interest. Students still hardly crack them open.