Impact of social networking for advancing learners’ knowledge in E-learning environments

Social networking has modernized digital education through the provision of novel functionalities, such as reacting, commenting, motivation or group formation. In the light of the new developments, this paper presents SNAKE (Social Networking for Advancing Knowledge in E-learning environment), which is an e-learning software incorporating social characteristics for the tutoring of computer programming. However, investigating the impact of e-learning software holding social characteristics is yet a quite under-researched area. To this end, an extensive exploration of SNAKE has been conducted which examined different factors affecting social networking-based learning. The population of this study included 200 undergraduate students of computer science. To analyze the disposable data, the structural equation modeling was utilized. Upon analysis and structural model validities, the experimentation led to an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) utilized for estimating the impact of the various variables. In more detail, the research model consisted of the TAM core constructs and three external variables. Concluding, the study confirmed that the model adequately explained causal relationships between variables and presented direct and indirect significant impacts of them on SNAKE which can promote learners’ better academic performance and knowledge acquisition.

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