Is facebook useful for learning? A study in private universities in Malaysia

Abstract

Facebook offers a new learning environment, and is used for online academic discussions between distance learners; however, students lack the primary skills to use it academically due to its popular social use. This issue requires investigation into the drivers that affect undergraduate intentions and behaviour when using Facebook as students of private universities in Malaysia. The technology acceptance model (TAM) is adopted to demonstrate student perceptions of using Facebook for learning. Perceived enjoyment and self-efficacy are also integrated into the research framework to offer a deep understanding about the acceptance and use of new technologies. The determinants analysed are perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment and self-efficacy. Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) is used to analyse the data. The results show that all determinants have significant positive relationships with intention and behaviour to use, except for perceived usefulness. The research findings offer valuable and helpful implications that will contribute to universities, educational developers and academics regarding the effective use of Facebook for learning. This research successfully developed an extended TAM model and verified its applicability for learning in Facebook.