How-to videos on YouTube: the role of the instructor

ABSTRACT

How-to videos on YouTube have become a popular source for procedural learning. An important difference to traditional educational videos is that the instructor is often not a professional educator, but an amateur or peer. Building on work on social learning from models, this paper explores how instructor characteristics such as model-observer similarity, instructor credibility (expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness), and conversational human voice influence choice and evaluation of a how-to video. A survey (n = 401) among active Internet users was conducted. Most respondents had used YouTube and had watched how-to videos on YouTube. Respondents preferred videos with instructors that they perceived as experts and trustworthy, and who talked in a conversational human voice. Instructors of the same gender as the viewer were also preferred, especially by males. The instructor variables explained variance in perceived usefulness and intention to use how-to videos above and beyond the technical and instructional quality of the video. However, only conversational human voice and same gender of the instructor turned out to be significant predictors of perceived usefulness and intention to use.

KEYWORDS:

• YouTube
• informal learning
• conversational human voice
• instructional video
• source credibility

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in OSF https://osf.io/qrcgh/.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As stated in the preregistration, we originally also included user satisfaction as a third dependent variable (derived from the technology-acceptance model; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; see Lee & Lehto, 2013 and Liao et al., 2015 for a similar approach). However, exploratory factor analysis showed that the items for behavioral intention loaded on the same factor as the items for user satisfaction. As the items for behavioral intention had higher factor loadings and to avoid conceptual unclarity, we decided to use only this scale.

2 This analysis has not been preregistered but was suggested by an anonymous reviewer.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sonja Utz

Sonja Utz (PhD in psychology 1999, Catholic University of Eichstätt) is a full professor for Communication via Social Media at University of Tübingen and head of the Social Media lab at Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (Knowledge Media Research Center) in Tübingen. Before moving to Tübingen, she held positions in Chemnitz, Amsterdam and Leeuwarden. She studies the use of social and mobile media for knowledge acquisition and exchange, both in informal and professional settings (e.g., LinkedIn, ResearchGate). The focus lies on the underlying motivational and cognitive processes. E-mail: [email protected].

Lara N. Wolfers

Lara N. Wolfers is a PhD student at the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien in Tübingen Germany. Her research focuses on the use of mobile media for stress management and the use of mobile media in the family. She has studied communication science at the University of Hohenheim (M.A., 2018) and at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (B.A., 2014).