The improvement of students' academic performance by using social media through collaborative learning in Malaysian higher education

Abstract

The social media have infiltrated the 21st century generations of Internet users, making it a very active means of communications, particularly among students of higher institutions of education. Consequently, academic activities in institutions and faculties are increasingly carried out through the social networks, such as Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. These are essentially used in order to connect with current and prospective students and also to deliver instructional content. Questions arise about the impact of social media on academic performance and the possibility of using them as an effective pedagogical tool to improvement academic performance. A pilot study of undergraduate and postgraduate students at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) was carried out to obtain preliminary results of usage of social media currently. Results obtained show that social media affects positively and significantly collaborative learning with interaction with peers, interaction with supervisor, engagement, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness.