The Improvement of Students’ Academic Performance by Using Social Media through Collaborative Learning in Malaysian Higher Education

TLDR

Social media have become pervasive communication tools among higher‑education students, increasingly used for academic activities and instructional content delivery. The study investigates whether social media can serve as an effective pedagogical tool to improve students’ academic performance. A pilot study at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia surveyed undergraduate and postgraduate students to assess current social‑media usage patterns. Social media usage significantly enhances collaborative learning, peer and supervisor interaction, engagement, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness.

Abstract

The social media have infiltrated the 21st century generations of Internet users, making it a very active means of communications, particularly among students of higher institutions of education. Consequently, academic activities in institutions and faculties are increasingly carried out through the social networks, such as Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. These are essentially used in order to connect with current and prospective students and also to deliver instructional content. Questions arise about the impact of social media on academic performance and the possibility of using them as an effective pedagogical tool to improvement academic performance. A pilot study of undergraduate and postgraduate students at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) was carried out to obtain preliminary results of usage of social media currently. Results obtained show that social media affects positively and significantly collaborative learning with interaction with peers, interaction with supervisor, engagement, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness.