Discovering Facebook as an Appropriate Environment for Learning from the City University College of Ajman Students’ Point of View

Abstract

The main purpose of this research study is to better understand the university students’ perspectives and attitudes towards using social network (Facebook) sites for enhancing their academic and social skills as well as to determine if there is a difference between male and female university students in terms of using social networking sites (Facebook) for acquiring different academic and social skills inside and outside the classroom. The study also tries to illustrate the importance of Facebook as a social networking site that is most regularly used by male and female university students in order to improve their academic and social skills. The participants of this study were 30 female and male undergraduate students in the City University College of Ajman, United Arab Emirates. The instrument of the study was a survey, designed and assigned to students in order to measure their perspectives towards the use of Facebook as a conventional learning environment. The expected findings of this study would reflect that male students had positive tendency and attitudes toward using Facebook as a social network site for acquiring academic and social skills more than female students who had negative tendency and attitudes. The results also would show that students can use Facebook pages for different purposes such as watching videos and writing blogs which is frequently used as a social network site for improving social and academic skills by male students while the majority of the female students can use Facebook for reviewing fashion and shopping more than studying and learning.

Keywords: social network, E-learning, Facebook.