The Usage of Social Networking Sites for Education in the Higher Education Context
This research aimed to study the usage of social networking sites (SNSs) for education in the higher education context. The survey research consisted of 412 university students who used social networking sites. The main purposes of students for the usage
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Abstract This research aimed to study the usage of social networking sites (SNSs) for education in the higher education context. The survey research consisted of 412 university students who used social networking sites. The main purposes of students for the usage of SNSs in education were to communicate with their classmates and lecturers rather than collaborate on their academic work or use them as a space for information resource sharing. The students revealed that the main advantages they received from using SNSs were easy and convenient ways to search for information, effective ways to contact or communicate with classmates and lecturers, and closer relationship among friends. Regarding the psychological factors that influenced the usage of SNSs in the educational context were subjective norms, compatibility between technology and users, and attitude toward technology. In addition, SNSs usage also correlated with its positive outcome in the context of education. The problems and obstacles the students faced from using SNSs in the educational context were management of time spending online and misinterpretation of non-face-to-face communication. Keywords Social networking sites
Higher education Learning
1 Introduction Social networking site (SNS) is one of the most popular Internet applications and has become part of everyday life of people. SNSs encourage users to create their own network and interact with other users; they can exchange and share information with those who have the same background, interests, and activities. SNSs, therefore, are communities where users are bound together by shared interest. Different from the preceding technology like websites, SNSs allow users to create S. Yuwakosol (&) College of Social Communication Innovation, Srinakharinwirot University, 114 Sukhumvit 23, Bangkok 10110, Thailand e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 J.I. Kantola et al. (eds.), Advances in Human Factors, Business Management, Training and Education, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 498, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42070-7_22
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and manage content on webpages by themselves as well as create their own network of people with whom they communicate and share information. These special characteristics of SNSs are conducive to a new way of Internet-based learning, in which students are not just the receivers of information but can also create and share their content. Applying SNSs in teaching and learning, e.g. by communicating knowledge in the forms of articles, videos, photos, and audio to students through the Internet, has been a key strategy for changing the learning process to an online approach, which is not confined to classroom study and lecturers and students can share content via online tool to foster an online community where both lecturers and students can learn simultaneously [1]. University education is a high education level which prepares students for the labor market. In Thailand, the Education Development Plan 2012–2015
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