Thitapa Chueinta. CEIC students' behavior in using social media to improve English language skills. Master's Degree(Career English for International Communication). Thammasat University. Thammasat University Library. : Thammasat University, 2017.
CEIC students' behavior in using social media to improve English language skills
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to explore the types of social media and the reasons CEIC students used or did not use it improve their English language skills. The participants were 75 first- and second- year students in the Language Institute of Thammasat University in the academic year 2017. The research instrument was an online survey questionnaire. The participants gave background information and ranked the English language skills that they would like to improve, and their behaviors in using social media were investigated. They also indicated reasons for using social media using an adapted Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), specifically focusing on perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU). The results revealed that most of the participants wanted to improve English writing and listening skills the most, reading and speaking skills the least. They spent more than 20 hours per week on social media for lifestyle and entertainment purposes. However, the majority of them also agreed that social media could be used as an English learning tool. YouTube and Facebook were the most used social media to improve English language skills while blogs and Wikipedia were the least. For PU, the main reasons that the participants used social media to improve English language skills were the various, updated and interesting content of social media (xˉ = 4.35) and that it enabled them to speak with foreigners (xˉ = 4.24). For PEOU, it was found that the highest ranks went to the convenience in regularly using it (xˉ = 4.52) and the ability to gain access to it wherever and whenever they needed (xˉ = 4.48), followed by good design for easy searching and suggesting similar related topics (xˉ = 4.28)
Thammasat University. Thammasat University Library