YouTube Acceptance Among Northern Illinois University Saudi Students
Abdullah Albalawi & Naif Jabli
Introduction
According to Alexa (2016), YouTube is ranked as number three website among the most visited website in the
Sample
Internet following Google and Facebook.
Several specialists and scholars have defined YouTube and shared similar understanding as it is social, video-
sharing, and open source website that allows users to watch, share, and up-load videos (Trier, 2007; Talab &
Statistical Analysis
Butler, 2007; Mullen & Wedwick, 2008; Jones & Cuthrell, 2011).
People can share their knowledge using YouTube by creating online videos where learners are able to watch
them freely and openly (Everhart, 2009; Snelson 2011).
YouTube is considered as a primary source for students when they start learning about new things (Hrastinski
& Aghaee, 2011 ; Head & Eisenberg, 2010; Lai, 2013; Snelson 2011).
Although the Internet contains many other video-sharing websites such as Academic Earth
(http://academicearth.org), Big Think (http://bigthink.com), Fora.tv (http://fora.tv), and TED
(http://www.ted.com), some of these websites such as Big Think, Fora.tv, TED Talks, and TeacherTube
have created their own YouTube channels to share their videos due to YouTube popularity (Snelson 2011).
Literature Review
Tamim (2012) found teachers perceptions of the advantages of YouTube videos is positive.
Fleck, Beckman, Sterns & Hussey (2014), found students perception was positive of using YouTube videos in
classrooms.
Franz (2011), Eick & King (2012), and Jaffar, (2012), found that using YouTube videos in classrooms helped
students to understand the lessons, improved students engagements, and increased the students interests.
According to lee & Lehto (2013) that behavioral intention to use YouTube was significantly predicted by both
perceived usefulness and user satisfaction, and task-technology fit, content richness, vividness, and
YouTube self-efficacy appeared as significant predictors of perceived usefulness. However, perceived
ease of use was not significantly predictive of either perceived usefulness or behavioral intention to use
YouTube.
According Jung & Lee (2015), concluded that three of UTAUT predictors, which are performance expectancy,
social influence, and facilitating conditions, were able to predict YouTube acceptance of educators and/or
students..
Goal Statement
The goal of this pilot study is to understand the acceptance of YouTube educational use among Saudi students
who are currently studying at Northern Illinois University (NIU). The acceptance will be examined by
investigating the four determents of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use Technology (UTAUT), which
are performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions in order to
determine the behavioral intention and use behavior use (Venkatesh et al., 2003).
Research Questions & Hypotheses
1- To what extent do performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence, predict Saudi Students
behavioral intention to use YouTube for academic learning purposes?
H1: Performance expectancy positively predicts Saudi students behavioral intention to use YouTube for
educational purposes.
H2: Effort expectancy positively predicts Saudi students behavioral intention to use YouTube for educational
purposes.
H3: Social influence positively predicts Saudi students behavioral intention to use YouTube for educational
purposes.
2- To what extent do facilitating conditions and behavioral intention, predict Saudi Students use behavior of
YouTube for academic learning purposes?
H1: Behavioral intention positively predicts Saudi students use behavior of YouTube in educational purposes.
H1: Facilitating conditions positively predicts Saudi students use behavior of YouTube in educational purposes.
Theoretical Framework
Methodology
Current Saudi students at Northern Illinois University
The sample size of this pilot study is 29
Electronic survey questionnaire.
Descriptive statistics
Inferential statistics (Multiple Liner Regression)
Methodology
Descriptive Statistical Analyses
Results
1- To what extent do performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence,
predict Saudi Students behavioral intention to use YouTube for academic learning
purposes?
As shown in the table that only 57% of behavioral intention can be predicted
by performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence.
In the ANOVA table we can see that p value is less .05 which means that the
predictors significantly predict behavioral intention
2- To what extent do facilitating conditions and behavioral intention, predict Saudi
Students use behavior of YouTube for academic learning purposes?
As shown in the table that only 69.6% of the use behavior can be predicted by
facilitating conditions and behavioral intention.
In the ANOVA table we can see that p value is less .05 which means that the
predictors significantly predict behavioral intention
Discussion
Overall, the predictors together can significantly predict the behavioral
intention, however when we look at each predictor individually, only effort expectancy
appears to be a significant predict of the behavioral intention to use YouTube. This is in fact
not consistence with Jung & Lee (2015) findings because this study shows that performance
expectancy social influence have a significant influence on behavioral intention. This
inconsistency might be due to the sample size of this study and if we expand the sample size
to all Saudi students in the united states, we might reach different results.
Also, when we look at the results of the questions, we find that only behavioral
intention can significantly predict the use behavior of YouTube. However, the facilitating
conditions is not significantly predicating the use behavior. Also, this study did not look at
the relationship between facilitating conditions as predictor for the behavioral intention.
According to lee & Lehto (2013) that behavioral intention to use YouTube was
not significantly predicted perceived usefulness. This in fact is inconsistence with this study
finding since effort expectancy, which is defined as th degree of the ease of using the system
(YouTube), was a significant predictor of Behavioral intention to use YouTube.
Moderating other UTAUT theory variables such as gender, age, experience, and
vultures of use would explain more the both the behavioral intention and the use behavior.
Also, there are other variables such as field of study, level of education,. These variables are
suggested to be included in the future study in order to see if they have influence on both
behavioral intention and use behavior of YouTube for education purposes.
Finally, this study is pilot study and the sample size is limited, the results of this
study could be different when bigger sample is used. Also, the instrument of this study needs
to be reviewed in order to ensure its reliability and validity.
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