A Preliminary Study on the Use of Social Media in Higher Education

Abstract

The study focused on the influence of social media on students, faculty members and administrators and how they can adopt social media for their academic and work purposes in higher education institutes within India. We developed a conceptual model based on the UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology) model, by adapting a few constructs and customising to fit the context. 756 respondents attempted the online survey. Of these, 400 were students, 199 faculties and 157 administrators. Respondents from 105 cities spread across 25 states participated in the survey. Due to the onset of the COVID pandemic, we resorted to the online collection method. The study considers three constructs – Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use and Social Influence as direct determinants that will influence the behavioural intentions of the users in higher education. We ran a series of basic descriptive analyses, T-tests and ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) for the data collected across all groups to determine if a significant difference exists in the perception, between groups. Results show that social media is perceived as a driver for innovation amongst all the three groups – students, faculty and administrators. However, there are differences in the positive-negative response ratio, which has however not affected the overall positive inclination of the combined responses of all groups. The current study may be an invaluable source of information for researchers to understand how the groups perceive social media.

Keywords: social media, higher education, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and social influence