THE PERCEPTION OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS STUDYING STATISTICS ON WEB 2.0-BASED USAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THEIR PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the use of online learning tools as a Personal Learning Environment for self-regulated learning for a statistic course. This study was carried out on students at a private university in Malaysia. This paper examines the data collected in a pilot study. The preliminary analysis of the data will be used to refine the questionnaire for a full-scale study. The data collected was processed and analysed using SPSS. The study’s results indicate many learners are connected with the internet but not many use it for learning purposes. Using social network for learning is found to be correlated with a stronger intrinsic motivation. Instructors have to adopt an attractive and innovative social media content that is integrated in the Learning Management System. The results show that learners prefer a blended learning method with both online and offline formats.  The implication– of this results is that there is a growing trend of the use of social media in learning, and at the same time there is still a demand for the conventional offline approach where there is an indication that a blended learning approach is still a better option.