Not Just Silly Cat Videos: Exploring Student Knowledge Sharing via Social Media

Social media have been widely used to share and exchange information for a variety of reasons. Students can use social media to exchange everything from cat videos to important information including Internet knowledge sources for learning. This study seeks to develop a better understanding of how and why students use social media to share Internet knowledge resources for learning. It builds on the theories of social capital and social cognition to develop a model for examining the influence of different dimensions of social capital (i.e., structural, relational, and cognitive) on students’ knowledge sharing via social media. Based on a survey of students at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), we find that the critical influencers of knowledge sharing are identification and outcome expectations. Results of this research can guide educators seeking to encourage knowledge sharing between learners by identifying the critical issues that motivate and limit such sharing.

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