Understanding the efficiency of teaching through YouTube vs PowerPoint on concept acquisition by second-year chemistry pre-service teachers

Studies indicate that YouTube and YouTube EDU are very popular tools for digital teaching and learning. However, students from disadvantaged communities have significant gaps in experiences, knowledge of the world, and access to enrichment options such as YouTube. The objective of this study was to test the effectiveness of YouTube versus PowerPoint presentation as a teaching tool to improve overall conceptual understanding of the topic, States of Matter, by 62 second-year pre-service teachers. A quasi-experimental design was used to select the groups conveniently; one group was used as an experimental group (n=31) and the other group was the control group (n=31). A pre-test for both groups was conducted on the first day at the same venue at the time when academic activities commenced at the university. The experimental group as well as the control group consisted of seven (7) males (22.58%) and 24 females (77.42%). A paired-samples t-test was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching through YouTube versus PowerPoint presentation. There was a statistically significant difference between the experimental (p=0.000) and control group (p=0.003) results. The findings of this study indicate that science lecturers can convey information to their students via digital media, devices, and techniques to improve the understanding of chemistry content. This creates sustainable teaching and learning spaces that will improve overall teaching and learning.