The adoption of social media applications for teaching purposes in higher education

ABSTRACT

Statistics indicated that social media applications are not being utilised by many faculties for teaching purposes. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that influence the adoption of social media applications for teaching purposes in higher education and present the current status of this adoption. The Theory of Planned Behaviour was used to guide this investigation. Finding indicated that 58% of faculty members use social media applications in their teaching, while 41% of them had not yet done so. The path analysis results indicated that behaviour intention was a strong predictor of the integration of social media applications in the teaching process, and faculty’s attitudes were the only predictor for behaviour intention. A number of implications and recommendations for future research based on the results are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Improving classroom teaching
• post-secondary education
• computer-mediated communication
• teaching/learning strategies

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, under grant No. (UJ-20-DR 68). The author, therefore, acknowledges with thanks the University technical and financial support. I also would like to thank Dr Thomas J. Marcinkowski for his guidance and helpful feedback through this investigation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, under grant No. (UJ-20-DR 68). The author, therefore, acknowledge with thanks the University technical and financial support.

Notes on contributors

Abdullah S Alshalawi

Abdullah S Alshalawi is a faculty member in the department of curriculum and instructions in the college of education at the University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His research interests are teacher professional development, the integration of new technology in education, international tests, and STEM education.