Abstract—This paper investigated if students’ varying
learning styles affect the use of social media for learningbased
on two learning styles, that is independent and collaborative.
Questionnaires were used to gather the students’ perceptions
after using a social media enabled tool, which was specifically
developed based on three key factors (i.e. Self, Effort and
Function). A total of 48 students with Computer Science
background were recruited to participate in the experiment.
Path modeling analyses indicate the factors to predict 70% and
59% of usage among the independent and collaborative groups,
respectively. Results show collaborative students to emphasize
more on Function and Effort than Self, whereas Self and Effort
had stronger impacts on the independent students than
Function. Pair-wise comparisons revealed the differences
between the learning styles to be significant for Self and
Function, that is Self to be more important for independent
students whereas Function was more important for the
collaborative students. No significant differences were noted for
Effort. The findings clearly indicate that students’ learning
styles play important roles in their learning activities, and hence
academics should look into the possibilities of using different
approaches in their teaching practices.
Index Terms—Social media, collaborative, independent,
higher learning institutions.
V. Balakrishnan is with the Faculty of Computer Science and Information
Systems, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (e-mail:
vimala.balakrishnan@um.edu.my).
Cite: Vimala Balakrishnan, "Learning via a Social Media Enabled Tool – Do Learning Styles Make a Difference?," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35-38, 2016.