Evaluating student's satisfaction of using social media through collaborative learning in higher education

Abstract

Social media have permeated all generations of Internet users, becoming a prominent communications tool and found to be facilitating teaching and learning, particularly in the student community. Thus, academic institutions and faculty are increasingly using social networking sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, to connect with students and to deliver instructional content. This has led to a rise in questions about the impact of social media for collaborative learning and the possibility of using it as an effective teaching tool. To learn more about the student' satisfaction with social media usage for collaborative learning improvement between students, we conducted a survey in a typical university in Malaysia. Basic aim of this research is to identify the characteristics and factors surrounding the usability of the social media for collaborative learning in higher education. A total of 134 Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) students were used in the survey. We development a conceptual framework in which we propose that interactive with peers and teachers, engagement, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness ;that explain the positive effects and benefits of using social media to enhancing student learning through collaborative learning which, in turn, improves student academic performance. The results revealed a statistically significant negative relationship between perceived usefulness and their satisfaction. Further, engagement and perceived ease of use was found to be highly correlated with students' satisfaction for using social media for collaborative learning among students.