AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION ON STUDENTS ACCEPTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA USED FOR LEARNING: AN EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIA

In the last few years, technology has tried to help humanity leading to a substantial interaction environment in the social world, as well as in learning and teaching which is influencing the students' academic life. Institutions and academics are constantly trying social media technologies with the hope of discovering the skills of collaboration, critical thinking and knowledge building. Nowadays, social media has been accepted by higher institutions, making it a platform where students connect with teachers, colleagues and other higher authorities. Social media, such as Google Plus, Facebook or Twitter, are used in learning for the purpose of convenient communication with other students and possibly with others outside the classroom. As social media applications can significantly enhance class materials, these applications positively influence discussions in authorization and collaboration. Therefore, the aforementioned aspect made the study explore and analyze how social media has an impact on students' academic lives, implementing a qualitative approach in this assessment, more precisely the questionnaire method. Fifty participants were sampled in three weeks, being students from University Politehnica of Bucharest, Faculty of Entrepreneurship, Business Engineering and Management. A combination of statistical analyzes such as Structural Equation Modeling and Principal Component Analysis was used to analyze the complex relationships between the determinants of these technologies, this research adopting the technology acceptance model, adding a subjective norm, the reliability of the internet and the speed as additional constructions. With these additions, the model is relevant in the analysis of this research. It has shown that the subjective norm, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are powerful factors in determining the behavior of students using social media platforms. However, the reliability and speed of the internet were significant only in (some) public education institutions. After analyzing the factors studied, the results show that the social media is widely used by the students of the higher institution and that they support the idea that the social media contributes a significant share to the development of their academic life. Although there are preliminary results, they suggest that private higher education institutions should initiate or continue the use of social media in classrooms. Even so, higher education public institutions should improve internet speed and reliability to re-evaluate the use of social media to take full advantage of ICT.