Effects of Vocational Students’ after-School Use of YouTube on Painting Learning Performance: The Roles of Motivation and Media Engagement

With the advancement of digital technology, YouTube has become a global video platform that not only offers rich entertainment content but also serves as an important source of supplementary learning for students. Its flexible, self-directed, and visualized learning features enable students to pursue learning based on their individual interests and needs. However, few studies have examined how YouTube is utilized in vocational high school art education, especially in the field of advertising design. The lack of empirical evidence on how specific types of learning motivation interact with media usage behaviors to influence creative skill acquisition represents a notable research gap. In Taiwan, drawing skills and creative expression are considered core competencies for students enrolled in vocational advertising design programs. Whether using YouTube to view drawing-related content during after-school hours can effectively enhance students’ learning performance is a topic worthy of investigation. This study aims to explore Taiwanese vocational high school students’ learning motivation for viewing drawing-related videos on YouTube, as well as to examine the impact of their after-school YouTube usage behavior on drawing learning performance. Furthermore, it investigates whether such behavior moderates the relationship between learning motivation and learning performance. A questionnaire survey was conducted among students from a vocational advertising design program at a vocational high school in Taiwan, and the collected data were analyzed statistically. The results indicate that both expectancy motivation and volitional motivation have a significantly positive impact on students’ drawing learning performance. Additionally, after-school YouTube usage was found to moderate the relationship between emotional motivation and learning performance. These findings contribute to the understanding of how media platforms can support creative education in vocational settings and offer insights for educators and curriculum designers to better integrate digital resources into skill-based instruction.