In the information and technology era, instructional video technologies have become popular teaching approaches and attracted academic interest. A growing body of literature has investigated various instructional video technologies and identified influencing factors on their effectiveness. However, the findings on the effectiveness of instructional video technologies are inconsistent. This study conducts a meta-analysis based on 50 included studies, evaluating the effectiveness of different instructional video technologies, effectiveness indicators, educational levels, and countries. This study examines three subgroups of instructional video technologies, finding that in-class video clips (d = 0.688, 95% CI = [0.488, 0.888]) enhance learning effectiveness more significantly than outside-class video clips (d = -0.144, 95% CI = [-0.634, 0.346]) and video games (d = 0.879, 95% CI = [-0.038, 1.796]). Instructional video technologies enhance learning motivations (d = 0.583, 95% CI = [0.123, 1.044]) and practical skill learning (d = 0.493, 95% CI = [0.010, 0.975]) more significantly than knowledge acquisition (d = 0.477, 95% CI = [0.273, 0.682]). Students in primary and middle schools (d = 0.640, 95% CI = [0.317, 0.963]) and adults (d = 0.501, 95% CI = [0.146, 0.856]) benefit from instructional video technologies more significantly than undergraduates (d = 0.438, 95% CI = [0.147, 0.728]). The effectiveness of instructional video technologies varies across countries. The findings may shed light on future study directions on instructional video technologies and promote the designs and applications of emerging video technologies in educational contexts.