Today one cannot think of any individual without a Social Network account. Regardless of gender, age and social-cultural background, with changing purposes almost every individual having Internet access uses a SNS (Social Networking System). This could be due to the fact that its use is indispensable while every other individual around us uses it or just because this generation has already born into the age of technology; as some researchers call this new generation of learners Homo Zappiens who has the necessary skills to use these technologies on their own without any instruction (Veen & Vrakking,
2006) and as digital natives, who has an inborn technological competence (Prensky,
2001). Besides being a daily, ordinary need of new generation members just like food and shelter, a research study justifies the need of this technology with the fact that some individuals particularly need it to keep tabs on their social network and maintain contacts (Wilson, Gosling, & Graham,
2012). Toma and Hancock (
2013) also point out ego needs as a compelling account and state that individuals are in need of seeing themselves as valuable, worthy, and good and that ego plays a role as explained by self-affirmation theory. These individuals could nurture their ego need through the use of SNSs. However, to Valenzuela, Park, and Kee (
2009), the amount of Facebook use, for instance, was associated with individuals’ involvement, their life satisfaction, and social trust.
When it comes to the features of SNSs, they are stated to offer its users the following opportunities; construction of a public or semi-public profile; a list of other users in connection; an opportunity to view and track people’s connections with others in their network (Boyd & Ellison,
2007). Besides these, Facebook for instance, has started to be used for an educational purpose lately (Nadkarni & Hofmann,
2012). Facebook has been reported to become probably a valued resource to support students’ classroom work and their educational communications and collaborations with faculty (Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman, & Witty,
2010) although frequent use of it is stated to interrupt students’ studying (Thompson,
2017). To McCarthy (
2010) through the use of social media for an educational purpose, students could be drawn into a university culture fostering social and academic interaction among peers.
Using SNSs for an educational purpose
Although e-mail connection is still the mostly preferred communication tool between students and instructors (Roblyer et al.,
2010), SNSs enable more effective use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for the purpose of education. Instructors could use SNSs for various educational purposes such as; (a) to blog; (b) to involve students in numerous academic subjects, e.g. science and literature (O'Hanlon,
2007); (c) to take part in an online cooperative work with other schools (National School Boards Association,
2007, p. 5); (d) to increase the overall quality of engagement for the aim of building up a more effective learning environment; (e) to log both student and instructor interaction (Roblyer et al.,
2010); (f) to carry out formative evaluation in the learning process and to design instructive activities consequently (Pasek & Hargittai,
2009); (g) to provide students with a different pedagogy of teaching in the students’ best interest (Hew,
2011); (h) to foster students’ active participation in the learning process and make them feel it (Schwartz,
2009); (i) to mentor students (Schwartz,
2009); (j) to benefit from all information coming from formal/nonformal/informal sources and their synergy (Bosch,
2009); (k) to support collaborative learning and critical thinking and to enhance communication (Ajjan & Hartshorne,
2008); and (l) to access constructive educational outcomes in various fields (Pempek,
2009). Moreover, students who are using SNSs often and actively have a positive perception to use them for educational purposes; the intensity of SNSs usage is associated significantly with the positive perception of the educational use as well (Ean & Lee,
2016; Lim & Richardson,
2016). On the other hand, Sobaih, Moustafa, Ghandforoush, and Khan (
2016) indicated that even though educators stated that social media has a great potential as teaching and learning tool, the actual use of social media in education was found at minimal level.
Similarly, students are suggested to use SNSs for an educational purpose; (a) to find answers to their questions regarding course venues and assignments; (b) to share information or ideas about projects, study or lecture notes; (c) to inform lecturers about the topics they would choose to learn about; in a way helping a lecturer to come to class more prepared (Bosch,
2009); (d) to communicate or to inform other students; (e) to ask the questions that they hesitate to ask in classroom to their instructors (e.g., due to shyness) (Bosch,
2009; Hew,
2011; Selwyn,
2009); (f) to develop encouraging relationships among students, peers and incorporate learner incentive and commitment (Kabilan, Ahmad, & Abidin,
2010; West, Finch, & Curran,
1995); (g) to participate in learning tasks (Madge, Meek, Wellens, & Hooley,
2009); (h) to develop a positive attitude towards learning and improve its quality (Kirschner & Karpinski,
2010; Pasek & Hargittai,
2009); (i) to enhance relational intelligence, as well as critical thought (Lampe et al.,
2008) (j) to increase individual responsibility and autonomy (Grosseck, Bran, & Tiru,
2011; Joinson,
2008); (k) to create their own learning path – students choose which instruments, sources of information, links and connections they will use (Hew,
2011); and (l) to keep alumni and students connected (Halligan,
2010).
There are a few studies indicating the results of using SNSs for an educational purpose in the literature. Heiberger and Harper (
2008) found that there was a positive association between SNS use and college student engagement. Similarly, Haverback (
2009) found that students were motivated to be involved in discussions in Facebook. In their study, Maguth, Yamaguchi, and Elliott (
2010) reported that students who use SNSs to access and analyze information, communicate, and showcase their learning were successful in the production and presentation of research results. Barrot (
2016) found that Facebook-based e-portfolio had a positive effect on students’ writing practices by enabling e-portfolio assessment more feasible. Moreover, she reported students’ increased energy, well-being and potential to take action, increased knowledge of oneself and others, and, finally, their interest in more connection as the secondary positive consequences of Facebook-based e-portfolio use. Schwartz (
2009) indicated the ‘mentoring theory’ as a theoretical basis for the educational use of SNSs. She pointed out SNS exchanges as an effective way of highly-interactive instructional communication and also an opportunity for pedagogical mentoring. It was reported in a study that students appreciated a teacher’s self-disclosure of Facebook (sharing personal pictures, messages, and their opinions); which ended up with more student participation and effective learning (Mazer, Murphy, & Simonds,
2007); and with more teacher credibility for students (Mazer, Murphy, & Simonds,
2009). Regardless of the limited and tentative evidence, as their study revealed, Roblyer et al. (
2010) claimed that students seemed much more open to the idea of using Facebook for an educational purpose than the faculty. They stated reluctance of the faculty as the cause for the rejection of this technological innovation. Whereas, the results of another survey by Hewitt and Forte (
2006) indicated that, students did not favor appearance of faculty on Facebook, which should actually suit to students more as a social site.
There are also other researchers uttered their hesitations regarding use of technology for education especially in learning environments where students learn through observation, repetition and social interaction. They claimed that it ends up with incidental learning in education which causes unplanned or unintentional learning. The reason for this concern was due to the fact that unintended learning may negatively influence students (Herrmann, Fox, & Boyd,
2000; Kabilan et al.,
2010). Supporting this, (Alt,
2017) indicated the distractive impact of using social networks during classes due to fear of missing out. Moreover, with his large sample study (
N = 2368), Junco (
2012a,
2012b) found that frequency of engaging in Facebook chat was negatively associated with the time spent getting prepared for class and that chatting on the net may detract students from schoolwork. To another researcher this detraction may also cause academic procrastination (Şahin,
2014). Similarly, rate of playing games, checking up on friends, and uploading photos negatively affected the time spent in co-curricular activities; whereas, remarking on a content, creating or RSVP’ing (Requesting response to an invitation) to events, and viewing photos were positive predictors. This finding indicates that types of activities on Facebook may create a difference in the way how students spend time on instructional activities. This may occur due to the limited knowledge of technology (basic office skills, e-mail, messaging and surfing over the net) students have. To explain, they most probably need a training regarding use of ICT for learning, a purpose to use SNSs and an explanation on how to absorb information through these media (Kirschner & Karpinski,
2010). In their study, Kabilan et al. (
2010) suggested that instructors should however, integrate learning objectives and outcomes of the educational activity for the learning experience to be meaningful. Bloch (
2008) suggested doing more research on the issue.
On the other hand, in their study, Kirschner and Karpinski (
2010) pointed that Facebook users who were university students had significantly lower GPAs and fewer studying hours per week compared to non-users. This finding supports the findings of another study investigating users’ attitudes and satisfaction towards Facebook. In the study, the researchers found that communicating on Facebook was often regarded entertaining by students and that they did not take it seriously (Lewis & West,
2009). Similar results were reached at another study which reported that how students perceived the aim of Facebook use was very different from academic work (Madge et al.,
2009). In his study, Çoklar (
2012) found that although students had positive perceptions regarding Facebook for its capability of distributing information, arousing interest and motivation, and for the provision of interaction; they were not pleased with its problem of control mechanism, excessive informational convergence. Similarly, another study indicated students’ mixed feelings toward the usage of social media in formal learning settings (Hung & Yuen,
2010); and another one suggested use of SNS as an online environment enabling English language learning (Kabilan et al.,
2010). In his study, Drouin (
2011) reported a positive association between text messaging frequency and spelling and reading fluency; at the same time, a negative association was reported between “textese” usage on SNSs—such as MySpace and Facebook—and reading accuracy. Wang and Kim (
2016) indicated that Facebook supported authentic tasks in second language learning. Moreover, Moghavvemi and Salarzadeh Janatabadi (
2017) examined the students’ Facebook use intention in three different measurement occasions and analyzed each model. They found that the perception to use Facebook in education altered along the three models, and students’ increased familiarity triggered the intention to use. They also concluded that Facebook was a complementary tool to deliver course-related links and documents that created an extra time for learning.
From the faculty’s side, there were studies indicating that faculty had a tendency to use any technology (such as e-mail) facilitating communication with their students (Roblyer et al.,
2010). However, some problems were reported regarding this type of connection (Flynn,
2009; Stansbury,
2009; Young,
2009). As reported in a study, although 77% of faculties were engaged in personal uses of SNSs, only 4% of them used Facebook for an educational purpose which was associated with faculty’s reluctance for this kind of engagement (Moran, Seaman, & Tinti-kane,
2011). Although there were a few initiatives calling for the use of Facebook for educational purpose, more tendency regarding prohibition for classroom uses of such technologies by the faculty members was reported (Roblyer et al.,
2010). It is obvious that there is students’ superiority in use of Facebook (Kleiner, Thomas, & Lewis,
2007). Ali (
2016) also indicated that medical educators mentioned the criticality of using Facebook as a platform for formal education; however, they remained their concerns related to intruding on the peer nature of online learning community.
There are two critical players of educational use of FB: instructors and students. Since this study particularly focused on students’ tendency to use FB in education, we can highlight some factors stemming from the previous works done to date. GPA of students were still cause of concern for both general and educational Facebook use. FB was presented as one of the factors hindering GPA. However, it is also important to observe how students with high GPA reacts to FB in education. Second, students may be inclined to use FB in education since they want to be more autonomous and responsible for their own learning path. Nowadays, these types of needs are widely common and should be investigated as one of the factors for using FB in education. The next negative consequence of general FB use is academic procrastination. In this study, we also wanted to see what students really think of educational use of FB when they have this kind of bad habit. The last potential factor is previous experience of students for using Facebook for personal or general purposes. It is expected that students with extensive FB experience may be influenced while they are using it for an educational purpose. All of these factors were examined in terms of their impact on students’ tendency to use FB for an educational purpose in the present study.