Adoption of mobile social networking sites for learning?
| Published date | 12 October 2015 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-05-2015-0152 |
| Pages | 762-778 |
| Date | 12 October 2015 |
| Author | Choy-Har Wong,Garry Wei-Han Tan,Siew-Phaik Loke,Keng-Boon Ooi |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval |
Adoption of mobile social
networking sites for learning?
Choy-Har Wong
School of Business and Administration,
Wawasan Open University, Ipoh, Malaysia
Garry Wei-Han Tan
Faculty of Business and Finance,
Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kampar, Malaysia
Siew-Phaik Loke
Faculty of Business Management,
Universiti Teknologi MARA Perak, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Malaysia, and
Keng-Boon Ooi
Faculty of Business & Information Science,
UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of thispaper is to explore the factors that influence users’behavioralintention
(BI) to adopt mobile socialnetworking sites (mSNS) in facilitatingformal/informal learning. Specifically,
the study also investigates the association of mobility, reachability and convenience with performance
expectancy (PE) and effortexpectancy (EE).
Design/methodology/approach –Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM)
approach was applied to test on 266 valid responses.
Findings –The findings indicated that learning compatibility (LC), PE, EE and copyright clearance
(CC) has a significant effect on BI. The results also revealed that EE is influenced by mobility,
reachability and convenience. PE however was found to be influenced by convenience.
Practical implications –The results of this study provides valuable insights and references for
practitioners and mobile network providers in developing mSNS in facilitating learning.
Originality/value –While mSNS have the potential to become a new research area with numerous
benefits for the learning community, there is little research on the adoption factors on mSNS in
facilitating learning. This study therefore attempts to close the research gap by contributing to the
mobile literatures.
Keywords Copyright clearance (CC), Effort expectancy (EE), Learning compatibility (LC),
Mobile social networking sites (mSNS), Mobility, Reachability, Convenience,
Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), Performance expectancy (PE)
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Mobile social networking sites (mSNS) have gained popularity among users today. The
development which is a combination of social networking service (SNS) (e.g. Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, MySpace, Sina Weibo) and mobile technologies have
enabled mobile users to interact and transmit real time across communities through
mobile devices(m-devices) such as mobile phone, smart phone,tablet and personal digital
assistant (PDA). These m-devices users are able to share photos, videos, comments and
Online Information Review
Vol. 39 No. 6, 2015
pp. 762-778
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-05-2015-0152
Received 16 May 2015
First revision approved
19 July 2015
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
The research is supported by the UTAR Research Publication Scheme (UTARRPS), under the
project number 6251/G03.
762
OIR
39,6
send instant messages (Lin and Lu, 2015) over their social links. Besides fostering good
interpersonal relationships among mobile users, mSNS can also be adopted as an
effective educational tool.
Adoption of the mSNS can be served as a platform to facilitate personal learning
(Dabbagh and Kitsantas, 2012), sharing of knowledge (Cabrera and Cabrera, 2005),
enhancing students engagement, college experiences and educational practices (Hamid
et al., 2014; Kuo and Tang, 2014). Thus, this creates an effective learning environment
among students (Mazer et al., 2007) which leads to the maintenance of social capital
(Ellison et al., 2007). While mSNS have the potential to become a new research area with
numerous benefits for the learning community, there is little research dedicated on
examining the adoption factors on mSNS in facilitating learning particularly in the
settings of developing economies include Malaysia. Most previous studies in Malaysia
mainly focussed on the feasibility of adoption m-devices, but not on mSNS, as a new
learning platform (Tan et al., 2012; 2014b). On the other hand, previous studies on SNS
were found to be limited. Zolkepli and Kamarulzaman (2015),for example, conducted an
empirical investigation on the social media needs and innovation characteristics which
leading to social media adoption. Drawing data from MySpace social network, Maria
Balmaceda et al. (2014) explored the association between users’personality traits and
online social networks. Another recent work by Sánchez-Franco et al. (2015) related to
examining the impact of four factors (i.e. personal innovativeness toward information
technologies, familiarity, trust and satisfaction) on social integration in the context of
SNS. Cheung et al. (2011) explored the driver on students’behavior in using online SNS.
Notwithstanding the values of these studies, there seem to highlight a research gap –
what motivatesmobile users to engage SNS via m-devices to enhance learning? Based on
this notion, this study aims to examine the factors that influencing users’behavioral
intention (BI) to use mSNS in facilitating formal or informal learning. We hope that our
research findings deepen the understanding on mSNS learning and add values to this
recent research stream. This paper is structured as such: the literature review provides
the evolution of mSNS as well as the theoretical supports for our proposed research
model. In subsequent sections, we describe the proposed research hypotheses and
methodology. Data analysis and results are presented before the discussion on research
findings and implications. Finally, we describe the limitations and provide directions for
future studies, and end with a brief concluding remark.
2. Literature review
2.1 Overview of mSNS
mSNSisdefinedbyLuet al. (2014, p. 197) as “an extension of social networking where
individuals with similar interests converse and connect with one another through
their mobile phones and/or tablets.”The development of mSNS has spurred in
expediting communication activities whereby mobile users are able to be connected
ubiquitously irrespective of time and place (Rana et al., 2009 ). These features have
profoundly changed the way how people communicate. Mobile users are able to
initiate a new pattern of interaction with real time access on a variety of SNS through
their m-devices. This does not only enrich the user’s social interaction, but also serves
as a learning mechanism. Lan and Huang (2012) observed that there is an increased
expectation to use m-devices for learning. Stockwell (2010) highlighted that mobile
phones has become a useful tool for enhancing vocabulary activities whereas Kim
et al. (2013) argued that m-devices could improve learning experience since they
provide greater flexibility for the educators to give personalized instructional
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Adoption of
mSNS for
learning?
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