Proceeding 34180

8/6/2019 Proceeding 34180

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The Perception and Acceptance of Students towards using Social Networking

Sites in Teaching and Learning

Tan Ee Xion

School of Computing

Taylors University CollegeMalaysia

[email protected]

Low Yeh Ching

School of Computing

Taylors University College

Malaysia

[email protected]

Abstract: Educators are now looking into utilising social networking sites (SNS) in teaching and

learning, either as a platform to share learning materials or as a tool for asynchronous e-learning.The purpose of this research is to study the perception and acceptance of Gen-Y students towardsusing SNS in teaching and learning and the presence of other possible factors which may influencethe utility of SNS in education. The Technology Acceptance Model was adopted in this study. A

survey questionnaire was administered on students in a private institution of higher learning. Thisstudy attempts to draw the conclusion that (a) social networking sites are perceived and accepted asuseful tools in teaching and learning, and (b) perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use willhave a positive impact on the acceptance level of social networking sites.

Introduction

In recent years, networking and communication is no longer limited to physical communities but has been extended

to the Web communities. Using the Internet to send to and retrieve information from anywhere seamlessly has

changed the way of communication in education, work and personal lives. E-mail, Short Messaging Service (SMS),chat rooms, forums and Social Networking Sites (SNS) are some of the online networking tools which are available.

SNS has become increasingly popular in recent years and continue to attract a large number of users. Since their

introduction, SNS such as Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, Orkut and Twitter have attracted many university

students and teenagers. It has reached out to hundreds of millions of people in all walks of life. Some even quote that

if youre not on MySpace, you dont exist (Kathy, 2006).

SNS is described as (1) an online space that allows users to present themselves, articulate their social networks, and

establish or even maintain their connections with friends and family member (Ellison, Steinfeld & Lampe, 2006),

and (2) allowing users to post their personal information, share photos, communicate with each other, and connect to

users with similar interests in the online space (Jeff, 2008).

According to the report by comScore (2009), Malaysians who are above 15 years old love to socialize using SNSand its penetration rate was 66.6% in year 2008. In terms ofAverage Minutes Spenton SNS per Visitor, Malaysians

spent 181.2 minutes compared to Singaporeans who spent 175.6 minutes. In addition, in the top ten SNS list

provided by Alexa (2009), Facebook is the most popular SNS among Malaysians, followed by Friendster, MySpace

and Twitter.

Some of the SNS like Facebook allow users or computer programmers to build and add applications to the site

(Boyd and Ellison, 2007). Besides this attractive feature, SNS has become common online destinations for

Generation-Y people around the world. Generation-Y people refer to the cohort of people born between the early

1980s and early 1990s and they grew up with the technology which enables new ways of communication, new types

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of collaborative networks, and new methods of learning (Cindy, 2009). They enjoy logging in to their SNS accounts,

creating elaborate profiles, publicly articulating their relationships with other participants, and writing extensive

comments on each others posts. Looking at the advantages and the popularity of the available features in the SNS,

educators may be able to use it to share learning materials or as a tool for asynchronous e-learning.

The rapid adoption of SNS around the world raises some important questions which revolve around the Generation-

Y students. What is the Generation-Y students perception of using SNS in teaching and learning? Is there presence

of external factors which may influence the students perception of using SNS in education?

Technology Acceptance Model as a Theoretical Framework

To study the Generation-Y students perception and acceptance of SNS in teaching and learning, the Technology

Acceptance Model (TAM) by Davis (1989, 1993) is adopted. TAM is an intention-based model developed

specifically for predicting user acceptance of computer technology (Hu, Chau, Sheng, & Tam, 1999).

Davis (1989) introduced the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by measuring what causes people to accept or

reject the use of information technology. Later, Davis (1993) presented his TAM model (Fig. 1) on user perceptions

and behavioural impact. It posits that the actual system usage is determined by behavioural intention to use it. This is

driven by two important variables,perceived usefulness andperceived ease of use.

Figure 1: Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

Perceived usefulness is defined as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system wouldenhance his or her job performance. This is believed that a system high in perceived usefulness, in turn, is one for

which a user believes in the existence of a positive use-performance relationship (Davis, 1989).

Perceived ease of use is defined as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be

free of effort (Davis, 1989). He also claimed that a system application which is perceived to be easier to use than

another is more likely to be accepted by users. Although perceived ease of use has a causal effect on perceived

usefulness, both are considered distinct constructs influencing the users attitude towards using the technology.

Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use will affect users attitude towards using the technology, which in

turn determines the behavioural intention to use that technology.

Behavioural intention to use is also mentioned in the model, and is defined as a measure of the strength of ones

intention to perform a specific behaviour (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975).

Current System Use

It is essential that TAM takes into consideration variables which are related to both human and social changes

processes and to the adoption of the innovation model (Legrisa, Ingham, & Collerette, 2003). Hence, Fig. 2 depicts

the modified TAM which is employed in this study. The model has been extended to include external variable

constructs such as gender, age group, course and features, which directly influence perceived usefulness, while

PerceivedUsefulness

Perceived

Ease of Use

BehaviouralIntention

to Use

Actual

System

Use

AttitudeToward

Using

Externalvariables

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accessibility to facility will influence perceived ease of use. The only external construct which will influence both

perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use is features.

This study focuses on only three external variable constructs: gender, features and accessibility to facility.Since the

study is looking at SNS as a teaching and learning tool, this research involves only the Generation-Y users.

Figure 2: TAM model with external variables

Therefore, the research hypotheses based on the proposed conceptual model in the context of teaching and learning

system are:

H1: There is a significant difference in the male and female students perceived usefulness of using SNS in

teaching and learning.

H2: The SNS features exert a positive influence on students perceived ease of use towards using SNS in


H3: The SNS features exert a positive influence on students perceived usefulness towards using SNS in


H4: Accessibility to facility exerts a positive influence on students perceived ease of use towards using

SNS in teaching and learning.

Methodology

A survey questionnaire was administered to students in a private institution of higher learning. A total of 85 post-

secondary school and undergraduate students (12 females and 66 males) participated in the survey. To ensure that all

the participants understood the meaning of SNS, a short explanation on SNS and its abbreviation was stated in the

questionnaire.

The questionnaire was divided into two categories. The first category was to measure the students response on SNS

in general, SNS features in terms of its current applications and in teaching and learning, perceived usefulness and

perceived ease of use on using SNS as a teaching and learning tool. In this category, all the items used a 5-point

Likert-type scale labelled from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Items to gauge accessibility and to collect

demographic information such as age, course currently undertaken and gender were included in the second category.

Measurement

To examine the validity of measures adopted in this study, a factor analysis was performed on three factors:

perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and SNS features for teaching and learning. Principal factor analysis

with varimax rotation was conducted to assess the TAM questionnaire items for the three factors. As shown in

(Tab.1), the results indicated 29.61% of variance for the first factor, 27.60% of variance for the second factor and

14.61% of variance for the third factor. The rotation converged in five iterations, with loadings less than 0.60

omitted to improve clarity. Based on Chesney (2006), factor loadings above 0.6 show a good convergent validity.

Gender

Age group

Features

Accessibilityto facility

Perceived

usefulness

Perceivedease of use

AttitudeToward

BehaviouralIntention to

Course

SNS as teaching and

learning tool

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Factor

Scale Item

Perceived

Ease of Use

Perceived

Usefulness

SNS Features for

Teaching and Learning

FTL1 0.753

FTL2 0.760

FTL3 0.728

FTL4 0.692

USE1 0.821

USE2 0.897

USE3 0.869

USE4 0.878

USE5 0.792

USE6 0.826

ESE1 0.740

ESE2 0.841

ESE3 0.881

ESE4 0.822

ESE5 0.865ESE6 0.790

% of variance explained 29.61 27.60 14.61

% of cumulative 29.61 57.22 71.83

Scale mean 17.80 21.95 14.99

Scale standard deviation 4.71 4.39 2.82

Cronbachs Alpha 0.77 0.93 0.92

Table 1: Factor loading for the rotated factors and Cronbachs Alpha reliability scores

In this paper, reliability was evaluated using Cronbachs Alpha. The reliability analysis was conducted in order to

ensure the internal validity and consistency of the items used for each variable. From (Tab.1), it is clear that the

results were all above 0.7. Therefore, the questionnaire is a reliable measurement instrument.

Results and Analysis

The research model shown in (Fig.2) was tested using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software.

USE1 USE2 USE3 USE4 USE5 USE6

Female 2.75 2.75 2.75 2.83 3.50 2.75Mean

Male 3.03 2.95 2.92 3.02 3.03 3.00

t -0.881 -0.752 -0.592 -0.671 1.528 -0.910t-test

Sig. (2-tailed) 0.381 0.454 0.556 0.504 0.131 0.366

Table 2: t-test results on influence of gender towards perceived usefulness

To test H1, t-test was used. Based on the results indicated in (Tab. 2), this study has found that gender do not play a

significant role in influencing the perceived usefulness of using SNS in teaching and learning. Both males and

females were found to be neutral (mean ranging from 2.75 to 3.50) in the perceived usefulness of using SNS in


The Pearson correlation analysis was performed on H2 and H3. Based on the analysis results shown in (Tab. 3) the

r-value is 0.396 with a p-value of 0.0001. This shows that H2 is supported. SNS features have a positive influence

on the perceived ease of use of SNS as tools in teaching and learning. The strength of this relationship is 0.157 as

measured by the r-square value. H3 is also supported based on the r-value of 0.358 with a p-value of 0.0001.

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Therefore, SNS features have a positive influence on the perceived usefulness of SNS in teaching and learning. The

strength of this relationship is 0.128.

SNS features for Teaching

and learning

Pearson Correlation 0.396Perceived ease of use

Sig. (1-tailed) 0.0001Pearson Correlation 0.358Perceived of usefulness

Sig. (1-tailed) 0.0001

Table 3: Pearson Correlation Coefficient between SNS features for teaching and learning and perceived ease of use

and perceived usefulness

ESE1 ESE2 ESE3 ESE4 ESE5 ESE6

Yes 3.64 3.53 3.72 3.59 3.88 3.68

No 3.75 3.00 3.75 3.50 3.50 3.00

t -0.231 1.260 -0.084 0.199 0.866 1.468

Accessibility

to PC

Sig. (2-tailed) 0.818 0.211 0.933 0.843 0.389 0.146

Yes 3.67 3.53 3.74 3.63 3.89 3.70

No 3.50 3.33 3.58 3.33 3.67 3.33t 0.911 0.944 0.641 1.055 0.846 1.295

Accessibilityto broadband

Internet Sig. (2-tailed) 0.371 0.438 0.524 0.294 0.400 0.199

Table 4: t-test results on influence of accessibility to a personal computer and broadband Internet towards perceived

ease of use

T-test was used to examine H4. In this research, most of the students (95.29%) in the sample have access to a

personal computer at home. However, this study has found that accessibility to a personal computer at home do not

play a significant role in influencing the students perceived ease of use of using SNS in teaching and learning.

Based on the results in (Tab. 4), all of the students in the sample were found to be neutral (mean ranging from 3.00

to 3.88) in the perceived ease of use of using SNS in teaching and learning.

Majority of the students (85.88%) in the sample have access to broadband Internet. Based on the results of the t-test,this study has found that accessibility to broadband Internet do not play a significant role in influencing the students

perceived ease of use of using SNS in teaching and learning. All of the students in the sample were found to be

neutral (mean ranging from 3.33 to 3.89 with standard deviations less than 1.00) in the perceived ease of use of

using SNS in teaching and learning.

Discussion

The survey questionnaire was created based on TAM. From the findings, TAM was partially supported. Based on

the data collected from 85 students, SNS features positively influence perceived ease of use and perceived

usefulness. This indicated that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use will have a positive impact on the

acceptance level of SNS as teaching and learning tool. Meanwhile, the results for gender and accessibility to facility

explained that they do not affect Generation-Y students perception towards SNS as being useful and easy to use

respectively. As such, careful attention has to be paid to the features of the SNS if it were to be employed as a

teaching and learning tool in the classroom. On the other hand, gender distribution and accessibility to a personal

computer at home or to broadband Internet do not seem to affect the feasibility of using SNS in teaching and

learning.

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Conclusion

In this research, TAM model with external variables constructs such as gender, age group, course, features and

accessibility to facility were introduced. These external variables constructs were used to examine the application of

TAM to study students perception and acceptance level towards using SNS as a teaching and learning tool. In this

paper, the study focuses on only three external variable constructs proposed: gender, features and accessibility to

facility. Since the study is looking at SNS as a teaching and learning tool, this research involves only theGeneration-Y users. The findings in this study reveal that in general the Generation-Y students find SNS easy to use

and useful as a teaching and learning tool and the features of the SNS would play a significant role on the students

perception.

Further research could be done to conduct an in-depth study on the effect of students choice of course on their

response towards using SNS in teaching and learning. By not limiting the sample to Generation-Y students only, the

effect of age group can be considered in future study. In addition, a comparative study could be conducted to

measure the acceptance of SNS after actually using the system in teaching and learning.

References

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ComScore (2009).Indias Social Networking Market Sees Global Brands Gain Prominence in 2008 [Press Release].

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Proceeding 34180

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