Facebook in Higher Education: Social and Academic Purposes

Abdulsalam Kaed Alhazmi; Azizah Abdul Rahman

doi:10.24297/ijct.v12i3.3244

Authors

Abdulsalam Kaed Alhazmi Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai Johor, Malaysia
Azizah Abdul Rahman Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, University of Science and Technology, Sanaâ€™a, Yemen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24297/ijct.v12i3.3244

Keywords:

Social networking, Facebook, academic usage, non-academic usage

Abstract

With the rapid growth and popularity of Facebook among students in higher education, the aim of this study is to explore the usage purposes among students including their academic and non-academic usage purposes in relation to gender, background, study level, and the length of their experience using Facebook. For this purpose, 105 local and international students were surveyed at a large public technology university in Malaysia. The results revealed that academic usage was limited compared to other usage purposes, such as social interaction, news, and entertainment. In relation to the academic usage, the results revealed that that study level and academic usage of Facebook were significantly related, while no significant relations were found in relation to gender, background or experience.

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Author Biographies

Abdulsalam Kaed Alhazmi, Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai Johor, Malaysia

Abdulsalam Alhazmi is a PhD student in the Information System Department at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. He received his Bachelor degree in Computer Science in 2003 at the University of Science and Technology (UST), Yemen, and Masterâ€™s of Information Technology in 2008 at the Open University Malaysia. He worked as an IT instructor from 2004 to 2010 in the Computer Science Department, Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, UST-Yemen. During this time, he also held management positions at the department and faculty levels, such as Coordinator of Quality Assurance Unit in his department, and IT Administrator of the Computer Center at the College of Science and Engineering, UST-Yemen. He is a member of AIS and his research interests include e-Learning Systems, Personal Learning Environments, and Social Media.

Azizah Abdul Rahman, Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, University of Science and Technology, Sanaâ€™a, Yemen

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Azizah Abdul Rahman is a Senior Lecturer and the Head of the Information Systems Department, Faculty of Computing, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. She received her PhD in Computer Science at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. She has written numerous journal articles and presented numerous papers at national and international conferences on her research areas. She is a member of AIS. Her research interests include Information Systems Management, Knowledge Management, e-Learning, and Social Networking.