Teaching digital competence in the use of YouTube and its incidental factors: Development of an instrument based on the UTAUT model from a higher order PLS‐SEM approach
Authors: Guillén‐Gámez Francisco D. , Colomo‐Magaña Ernesto , Ruiz‐Palmero Julio , Tomczyk Łukasz 
Published: July 2023

The increasing use of digital resources has changed the way of teaching, where platforms such as YouTube offer large repositories of educational videos. There are many theoretical studies that analyse the digital competences of teachers, but to a lesser extent on the behaviours and use that the teacher makes of this multimedia platform. Thus, the purpose of this study is the development of an instrument in which it is analysed how the behavioural intention of teachers on YouTube impacts their digital competence to search and select information, share information, and interact with other users of the platform, and create educational material. To achieve this, following the partial least squares (PLS) method of structural equation models, a higher‐order causal model was proposed based on an adaptation and extension of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The study was carried out with a sample of 2157 teachers from all over Spain. The main result was that behavioural intention explained 22.70% of the true variance of teachers' digital competence. In addition, it has been possible to verify the reliability, convergent and discriminant validity of the established causal relationships, determining a model with acceptable goodness‐of‐fit. These findings show that it is a valid and reliable instrument to measure teachers' digital competences on YouTube, behavioural intention, and the system of relationships between factors.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

Teachers can use YouTube to search and create creative and innovative educational lessons.

The teacher must have adequate digital competence to search, select, evaluate, and effectively use the content of this platform in the classroom.

The four central predictors of the UTAUT model (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology) allow to explain and predict the adoption and use of ICT in different contexts.

What this paper adds

The elaboration of an instrument on the digital competences of the teacher on the use of YouTube as a didactic resource, based on an extended model of UTAUT.

Identification of the factors with the greatest incidence on the behavioral intention of the teacher to use YouTube as an educational resource.

Identification of how the behavioral intention and the ease of the conditions determine the use of YouTube by teachers to search for educational content, share it or create it by themselves.

Implications for practice and/or policy

Extensive information on the factors that teachers should pay attention to improve their behavioral intention to use YouTube as a teaching resource.

The need to promote improvement policies on technological and digital conditions which will affect the digital competence of the teacher for the usability of YouTube as a more visual, verbal, and interactive educational process.

Educational institutions should better prepare teachers for their role as innovative teachers, providing them with adequate digital skills in relation to the use of YouTube as a teaching resource.