To WeChat or to more chat during learning? The relationship between WeChat and learning from the perspective of universi
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To WeChat or to more chat during learning? The relationship between WeChat and learning from the perspective of university students Rujing Hou 1 & Shenghao Han 2 & Kun Wang 3 & Chubing Zhang 4 Received: 22 July 2020 / Accepted: 14 September 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract WeChat has become an indispensable part of university students’ life in China. However, there was little research into the relationship between WeChat and learning. This study investigates university students’ attitudes towards the impact of WeChat on learning, the determinants of WeChat learning engagement, and how WeChat usage influences students’ academic performance. A total of 719 valid questionnaires were sent and collected from university students. The results indicate: 1) WeChat is perceived as a “double-edged sword” of learning with two-sided effects. 2) Students’ engagement with WeChat on learning is at the upper-medium level, over which the motivation of WeChat usage, other than usage duration and login time, is found to have strong explanatory power. 3) The frequency of WeChat usage affects students’ academic performance in a complicated way with self-control playing a moderating role. The findings have significant value for future research about WeChat usage among university students. Keywords WeChat . Mobile learning . Academic performance . WeChat learning
engagement . Self-control
* Chubing Zhang [email protected] Rujing Hou [email protected] Shenghao Han [email protected] Kun Wang [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Education and Information Technologies
1 Introduction With the rapid development of Web 2.0 technology and the fast growing number of internet users, more and more mobile social applications have emerged, which improve the efficiency of people’s daily activities all roundly (such as communication, learning and shopping). As one of the most frequently used social media apps, WeChat is immersed in people’s lives in China and has also gained worldwide attention and usage. According to the Social Media Universe of Visual Capitalist, WeChat has reached 1.0 billion WeChat’s monthly active users (MAU) in 2018. Since its launch in 2011, WeChat has become more than just an IM tool but grown into a “super app” with a system-level fully-integrated platform covering services for most aspects of everyday life from ordinary shopping to public services access. WeChat users can not only chat with friends, groups and strangers, but also conduct business or e-commerce activities, manage finances, play games, and even connect to a variety of IoT devices (Xu et al. 2015). In addition, social software is found useful for learning outside the classroom and can greatly affect students’ academic performance (Tian and Wang 2010). It is noticeable that WeChat, as a leading social app, has been used massively in learning among university students in China, which brings both opportunities and challenges for higher education. Theref
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