The Reality of Using Facebook by the Students of the Faculty of Education at the International Islamic University, Malaysia and Their Attitudes Towards it.

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the reality of the use of Facebook by students of the Faculty of Education at The International Islamic University, Malaysia by exploring the frequency of using Facebook, obstacles encountered, and students’ attitudes towards it. In order to achieve these objectives, the Researcher adopted the Descriptive Method and designed a questionnaire consisting of 47 items on three axes: the frequency of using Facebook, obstacles encountered, and students› attitudes. A sample of 159 male and female students from the Faculty of Education at the International Islamic University, Malaysia were polled.
The findings showed that the use of Facebook by the sample was moderate and so is the severity of encountered obstacles from their point of view. The results also showed that respondents had neutral attitudes towards the use of Facebook.  Moreover, the results showed statistical significant differences by (a≤0.05) among the average, ranking, and level of the «education level» variable in using Facebook in favor of the fourth level and in terms of the number of hours spent per day on Facebook variable in favor of a higher number of hours spent. The study did not show significant difference in the frequency of use in terms of gender nor in terms of specialization. The findings also revealed statistically significant differences (a ≤ 0.05) among the average, ranking, and “education level « variable in regard to the severity of obstacles in using Facebook in favor of the second level and also in terms of the daily hours spent on Facebook ariable in favor of less number of hours spent. While no significant differences appeared in terms of gender nor specialization variables. The result also showed that there was statistically significant difference (a ≤ 0.05) among the average, ranking, and level of «number of daily hours of using Facebook” variable regarding the attitudes of respondents in favor of the number of more hours used while there was no significant difference in terms of gender, specialization, nor education level variables. A number of recommendations were presented by the Researcher. The most important ones are related to the use of the social network (Facebook) in learning and teaching processes, raising students› awareness to their potentials and the features of Facebook, raising technological awareness among students, getting them well trained to include modern technologies in their education, solving the obstacles encountered by the students in using Facebook in higher education. The study also proposed conducting similar researches and studies in Yemen in addition to conducting other studies on the use of Facebook in teaching by the faculty members in the faculties of education.