How Students Perceived Social Media as a Learning Tool in Enhancing their Language Learning Performance

ABSTRACT

Social media like Facebook has been used for teaching and learning for quite some time. Since it allows for better participation in the learning activities, a fundamental English course at a private university integrated Facebook as a learning platform making it possible for students to do self-study, exchange ideas, give comments, and submit the assignments in order to improve their grammar knowledge and writing ability. This study investigated to see how students perceived Facebook in terms of ease of use, usefulness, and attitude toward the use of Facebook for doing the activities and examined whether these factors were correlated. The participants were 86 first-year students who took an English course in the first semester of 2015 academic year. This study employed the proficiency test and the questionnaire to collect data. The results reveal that overall mean scores of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness were at a high level, and students had a positive attitude toward the use of Facebook for doing the activities. It was also found student learning performance was positively correlated with perceived usefulness of Facebook and attitude toward doing the activities in Facebook. The perceived ease of use had positive relationships with perceived usefulness of Facebook and attitude toward doing the activities in Facebook. Moreover, attitude was related to perceived usefulness while no relationship was found between perceived ease of use and learning performance. The concluding remarks suggested the possibility to integrate social media in future courses with an awareness of some factors that may facilitate or obstruct learning via online learning environments.