Abstract

Evolving excellent academic writing skills is fundamental to higher education. Many approaches often attempt to help learners improve their academic writing to suit needed skills across discipline-specific landscapes in the twenty-first century. There is the need to continue to evolve new ideas and strategies to transform the academic writing skills of learners in line with the transformation agenda of higher education. The general approach to educational technologies in higher education is well documented, highlighting the potentials of technology across knowledge domains, but a primary current focus is on a critical need to monitor the impact of specific tools, in this case, digital media on academic writing (in a non-language-based module) to inform practices. An alternative approach is necessary to measure the effect of new media on context-specific aspects of the scholarly text and academic vocabulary in the performance of students. The core constructs of the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) were used to underpin the research. The study site was students in the discipline of Library and Information Science at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. The population comprised sixty-three students split into three groups—one control and two treatment groups based on an experimental research design. The teaching methods for the groups differed. The results suggest that it is the rationale and delivery strategy and not the YouTube tool that counts. The impact of YouTube videos on learning outcomes was presented to advance global knowledge of the use of new media.