The Role of Social Media for Instructional Purposes

Abstract

The purposes of this study are to find out functions achieved in social media-based activities for instructional purposes, and the faculty members' opinions towards the use of social media for such purposes. Samples include 31 faculty members, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University (SSRU), Bangkok, Thailand. A questionnaire is used to collect data. The study discloses 3 functions achieved in social media-based activities for instructional purposes with average time consumption of more than 5 times a week, namely retrieving contents for classroom instruction from websites and YouTube followed by presenting contents from websites and YouTube in classroom instruction, and communicating with students through Line. Moreover, the opinions of the samples towards the use of social media for instructional purposes indicate their perceived value of the usefulness of such media. The opinions with highest mean scores include delivering information, and contents to students followed by satisfying students' need to be tech-savvy, and facilitating communication and collaboration among teachers and students. It can be concluded that the faculty members perceive the technology usefulness of social media and make use of it to develop information retrieval skills and online relationships.Index Terms-Social media-based activities, social media for instructional purposes, tech-savvy, and the online community of inquiry.

Faculty’s Social Media usage in Higher Education Embrace Change or Left Behind

“…The extant literature shows notable variations between the personal, professional and instructional use of social media with respect to different regions. For instance, authors in [25] conducted a study to understand the functions of social media usage and opinions of 31 faculty members" towards instructional use of social media. The study revealed positive opinions on delivering content to meet the requirements of their technologically eligible students through interaction.…”