Education Week - September 12, 2018 - 6

Why 'Generation Z' Learners
Prefer YouTube Lessons
Video learning outranks printed books in survey
Fifteen-year-old Jaimie Moreano is on
YouTube all the time.
She can learn how to do anything she wants
using the video-sharing platform. She uses it
to watch hair and makeup tutorials and getready-with-me videos to see what's cool to
wear.
But makeup tutorials aren't the only videos
she watches on the popular video platform.
"When I'm doing my homework, I'll look
up how to solve a problem on YouTube," said
Moreano, a sophomore at Locust Valley High
School outside New York City. "I like it because it's really easy to follow. I can pause it,
or I can rewind it if I have a question."
She's part of a majority of Generation Z
kids who have a higher preference for learning from YouTube and videos, compared with
printed books. That shifting preference is
driving curricula and technological changes
in some school districts, but also raising questions and concerns about the downsides of relying too much on video.
In a survey released last month of people
ages 14 to 23-the so-called Generation Z
group-YouTube ranked the highest as a preferred learning tool. Fifty-nine percent picked
YouTube as a learning preference, 57 percent
chose in-person group activities, 47 percent
picked learning apps or games, and 47 percent chose printed books. The study-conducted by a global market research firm, The
Harris Poll, on behalf of education company
Pearson-examines the differences between
Generation Z and Millennials-defined as
ages 24-40-when it comes to their outlooks,
values, and experiences in education and the
use of technology.
The Generation Z age group has a "specific
brand relationship" with YouTube, said Peter
Broad, the director of global research and
insights for the education company. "When
younger learners are looking for answers,
they're going to the most straightforward, familiar force, and for them that's YouTube."
The Google-owned platform is "full of explainers and tutorials" and content that is
"short and easily digestible," he added.

'Grasp the Concept'
Those Generation Z preferences are driving
significant changes in some school districts.
In the Mineola school district outside New
York City, Superintendent Michael Nagler has
been encouraging teachers to use more video
in the classroom. The district has a YouTube
channel for educators and students, with videos covering topics from growth mindset to
science and math lessons. Videos complement
the regular curricula and give students reallife connections about why they're learning
something, Nagler said.
"If all the facts and figures are available on
the internet, then students don't need to sit
and listen to you," Nagler said. "But what's
the bigger connection? Videos can give them
that bigger connection, engaging them in the
content and lesson itself."
Despite his enthusiasm for the power of
video learning, Nagler emphasizes that teachers still need to be the ones guiding students
through the content.
The members of Generation Z seem to agree.
According to the Pearson study, 78 percent of
respondents said that teachers are "very important to learning and development."

For younger learners who have grown up
with technology, it's all about efficiency and
using any resource they can get their hands
on easily, Broad said.
"They want to learn as quickly as possible,"
he said. "Their assumption is that [the answers they need] will be available to them."
YouTube is a good source when Moreano
has a test coming up, she said. She just types
"crash course" on whatever subject the test is
on and she'll find YouTube videos of "people
simplifying everything," helping her to really
"grasp the concept."

Many students now
turn to YouTube
before books to grasp
difficult concepts
in math and science
or to investigate topics
for English and
history classes.

Privacy and Content Concerns
Educators and researchers alike agree that
young people's tendency to gravitate toward
YouTube has to do with the fact that they've
grown up with this technology and expect it
to always be available to them. The website
launched in 2005, around the same time the
Generation Z age group was growing up.
Andrew Biggs, a social studies teacher at
New Technology High School in Napa, Calif.,
said that students like YouTube because "it's
on-demand content."
For students, the strength of video is that
you can play and pause it "as many times as
you want, without having to feel like you're
inconveniencing someone," Biggs said. It also
makes sense to use it for learning because "a
lot of students already use YouTube recreationally."
The video-sharing website is widely popular
among kids and young adults.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found
that 85 percent of U.S. teenagers use YouTube,
and 32 percent say they use the video-sharing
platform more often than other social media
platforms. Forty-seven percent spend three
or more hours a day on YouTube, according to
the Pearson study.
YouTube, however, has recently been accused of targeting children with advertisements and violating the Children's Online
Privacy Protection Act, Education Week reported in April. More than 20 consumer advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal
Trade Commission, alleging that YouTube has
been gathering data of children to target advertisements.
It has also been criticized for recommending
inappropriate content to children, said Josh
Golin, executive director of Campaign for a
Commercial-Free Childhood, one of the advocacy groups that filed a complaint with the
FTC. YouTube recommends videos that contain "extremist viewpoints, conspiracy theories, violent and adult content," he said.
The platform is also "designed to keep you
watching one video after another, exposing kids
to risks," Golin said. It's something educators
should think about before sending students to
YouTube for educational purposes, he added.
Students also have concerns.
Eva Clark-Dupuy, a junior at New Technology
High School, said she uses YouTube as a learning tool because it's more accessible to her.
"It's a free app," she said. "It's easy to look
at. You get millions of results when you search
something."
But the downside of YouTube being a "freefor-all space," she said, is that anyone can upload a low-quality or misleading video, and the
videos could contain inappropriate content.
Other students are concerned that the
video-sharing platform is becoming more
commercialized.

6 | EDUCATION WEEK | September 12, 2018 | www.edweek.org

All images: YouTube

By Lauraine Genota

"Even the YouTubers themselves are advertising products, and you don't know whether
to believe them or if they're just getting paid
to say that," said Ben Danialian, a senior at
Mineola High.

The Role of Visual Learning
The preference for YouTube and videos
signals a shift in learning styles, Pearson's
director of global research and insights said.
The role of video and visual learning is "essential in rising learners and the generation to come," Broad said. Pearson has also
found that there is growing interest in other
video-based learning platforms like Khan
Academy.
Some teens are turning to YouTube because they find that it's easier to understand
something when they watch someone explain
it visually. It also helps that they can pause
and rewind a video if they don't understand
it right away.

Watching a video can be more helpful than
having someone lecture at her, Clark-Dupuy
said.
"Sometimes learning from a textbook
doesn't help me," she said. "Sometimes it's
much easier to watch a video on a topic. If I
have a visual, it's easier to grasp."
The visual aspect of videos isn't the only
reason younger learners are turning to YouTube. They also find the videos more relatable
than books.
Moreano said that YouTube is "almost more
personal than reading a book, because you see
them and what they're actually doing, and not
just what they're writing."
She also gets to follow people her age,
which makes the video-sharing platform
better than a book, she said, because "books
feel old to me."
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Education Week - September 12, 2018

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