Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers & Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

Modeling educational usage of Facebook

Sacide Güzin Mazman*, Yasemin Koçak Usluel
Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Hacettepe University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:ĆReceived 28 September 2009 The purpose of this study is to design a structural model explaining how users could utilize Facebook for
Received in revised form educational purposes. In order to shed light on the educational usage of Facebook, in constructing the
27 January 2010 model, the relationship between users' Facebook adoption processes and their educational use of
Accepted 10 February 2010
Facebook were included indirectly while the relationship between users' purposes in using Facebook and
the educational usage of Facebook was included directly. In this study, data is collected from Facebook
Keywords:
users with an online survey developed by the researchers. The study group consists of 606 Facebook
Social network
users whose answers were examined by using a structural equation model. The analyses of the 11
Adoption
Diffusion of innovation observed and 3 latent variables provided by the model showed that 50% of educational usage of Facebook
Facebook could be explained by user purposes along with the adoption processes of Facebook. It was also found
Educational context that Facebook adoption processes could explain 86% of all user purposes. Finally, while Facebook
adoption processes explained 45% of its educational usage, it could explain 50% of variance in educational
usage of Facebook when the user purposes were added into the analyses.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Rapid development of information and communication technologies has brought changes in various pedagogical and technological
applications and processes. Currently, social networks are being adopted rapidly by millions of users most of whom are students with a great
number of purposes in mind (Lenhart & Madden, 2007; Selwyn, 2007a). Studies showed that social network tools support educational
activities by making interaction, collaboration, active participation, information and resource sharing, and critical thinking possible (Ajjan &
Hartshorne, 2008; Mason, 2006; Selwyn, 2007a). Hence, using social networks in educational and instructional contexts can be considered
as a potentially powerful idea simply because students spend a lot of time on these online networking activities. While the current
generation of Learning Management Systems (LMS) allows each student to have their personally chosen course(s) in which they are
enrolled, many of these LMS lack of social connectivity tools and personal profile spaces that can be used by the students involved. In
contrast, students today demand more autonomy, connectivity, interaction and socio-experiential learning opportunities in their learning
contexts (McLoughlin & Lee, 2007). Along the same lines, integration of new technologies in existing learning contexts has brought
significant changes in overall learning processes and their outcomes. Because students complain about lacking opportunities for authentic
communication due to non-personalized course content even when alternative delivery methods are employed, providing informal learning
contexts by integrating emerging social networks into existing learning practices becomes significantly important to attain more robust
learning and teaching opportunities (Bartlett-Bragg, 2006).
Research on social networking in education is still limited although available research on social networks has focused on identity, network
structures, privacy and technological issues and so the need for research on social networks in educational contexts is now recognized
(Lockyer & Patterson, 2008). Hence, explaining the reasons for social networks' rapid diffusion, adoption and acceptance by individuals and
users' purposes is fundamentally important to determine the factors influencing users' adoption of social networks in educational context.
Facebook, being one of the most popular and commonly used social networks is chosen in this study as the social network site to
determine the factors influencing its users' adoption processes in an educational context. While determining the educational usage of
Facebook, a structural equation model is constructed which examines the relationships between factors affecting this adoption process in
relation to the user's existing purposes.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sguzin@hacettepe.edu.tr (S.G. Mazman), kocak@hacettepe.edu.tr (Y.K. Usluel).

0360-1315/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.02.008
 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453 445

1.1. Social networking in educational context

Definitions of social networks in research literature shows that although some studies focused on communication and collaboration,
some others focused on structural characteristics of these tools such as the profiles, uploading photographs, comments, writing on walls,
and friends' lists. For example, Bartlett-Bragg (2006) defined social networks as a “range of applications that augments group interactions
and shared spaces for collaboration, social connections, and aggregates information exchanges in a web-based environment.” Similarly,
Boyd and Ellison (2007) defined social networks as web-based services allowing individuals to 1) construct a public or semi-public profile
within a bounded system, 2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of
connections and those made by others within the system.
Ease of use, allowing for rapid updating, analyzing and sharing continuously increasing information stemming from our daily life,
establishing spontaneous relationships, supporting informal learning practices by means of interaction and communication, and facilitating
delivery of education are explained as the reasons why social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Youtube, and Flickr are
adopted and accepted rapidly although they had originally emerged for sharing photos, personal information, videos, profiles and content
(Ajjan & Hartshorne, 2008; Mejias, 2005).
There are hundreds of social networks with various technological applications serving to a wide range of interests most of which support
the maintenance of pre-existing social relations, however, many others help strangers to connect to others' profiles with shared interests,
needs, political views etc. (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Social networks include various people both as authors as well as readers, nonetheless
personalized content, information sharing and collaboration are the socializing dimensions of these tools (Bartlett-Bragg, 2006). As Lenhart
and Madden (2007) postulate, 55% of teenagers use social networks in their daily lives most of whose purposes are limited to communi-
cating with friends, making new friends and sharing personal information and materials. On the other hand, beside this socializing entity,
social networks are suggested to help users re-situate learning in an open-ended social context by providing opportunities for moving
beyond the mere access to the content (learning about) to the social application of knowledge in a constant process of re-orientation
(learning as becoming) (Mejias, 2005).
Social networks, consisting mostly young people as users, are highly informal environments which play an important role in continuing
the interaction outside the classroom. While it is expected that social networks will increase interaction related to formal educational
purposes, young people also use these applications to continue their informal education such as by following and commenting on academic
and social issues, dilemmas and disappointments faced while pursuing university education (Selwyn, 2007a). Thus, using social networks in
an academic context is attractive for these young users, will be given a chance to acquire new knowledge through subliminal, effective and
smooth learning processes while taking part in enjoyable interactive situations mediated through interesting and motivating tools and
content (Gillet, El Helou, Yu, & Salzmann, 2008).

1.2. Facebook

It is known that, social networks started with Six.Degrees.com in 1997 followed by other social networks sites such as Livejournal,
Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Last.fm, Flickr, YouTube, and finally Facebook launched, attracting great numbers of registered users in
a short span of time (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). In this study, the Facebook is handled among other social networks. Facebook is defined as
“a social utility that helps people share information and communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers”
(facebook.com). Despite the fact that Facebook was launched in 2004 as a Harvard-only Social Network site, it expanded to include other
high school students, professionals inside corporate networks, and eventually everyone who have access to the online world (Cassidy, 2006).
Facebook provides a personalized profile to the user while allowing for communication, information sharing, creating a friends list, photo
albums, forming or applying to social interest groups, and different kinds of online games. In short, as members of Facebook, people can share their
photos, send messages, chat, tag themselves or others on photos, write on friends' walls, join groups, create new groups, share ideas in group
discussions, add kinds of applications, and play games in Facebook. Facebook has been accessed by millions of users in a short time while becoming
a part of users' daily lives. Similarly, it has attracted researchers' interest in different subjects such as users' patterns of offline and online activities,
online identities, technological capacities of social connections and cultural patterns (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Selwyn, 2007a).
Facebook is being considered as an educational tool because of its beneficial qualities such as enabling peer feedback, goodness of fit with
social context, and interaction tools (Mason, 2006). Because most Facebook users are between 18 and 25 years old, they mostly are
university students (Bumgarner, 2007). Hence, it can easily be deduced that it can be a useful educational tool especially by providing active
participation and collaboration.
The variables influencing adoption of Facebook are located and users' reasons for using Facebook are interrogated in order to explain the
educational usage of Facebook by constructing a model as the end product of this study.

2. Research model and hypothesis

The model constructed to shed light on the educational usage of Facebook, consists of 3 latent variables and 11 observed variables.
Adoption as a latent variable was explained by 5 observed variables; usefulness, ease of use, social influence, facilitating conditions and
community identity. The items developed for the Facebook adoption scale were prepared having completed a thorough literature review on
existing adoption, diffusion, acceptance and usage models and theories. While developing the scale items about Facebook users' purposes
and views on educational usage of Facebook, the relevant literature on social networks was reviewed and Facebook's potential features were
examined. Hence, related or similar themes were classified under some tentative categories (Fig. 1).

2.1. Adoption of Facebook

There are different constructs, theories, and models prepared to explain the acceptance, adoption, diffusion, and usage of technological
innovations. While some of these have been investigated at an individual level with a focus on individuals' internal decision processes
446 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453

Usefulness

Social Relations Work Related

Ease of Use Communication

Social Educational Collaboration

Adoption Purpose
Influence Usage

Facilitating Material and

Conditions Resource Sharing
Daily Activity

Community
Identification

Fig. 1. The research model.Ă

(Ajzen, 1991; Davis, 1989; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), some others have focused on the features of innovation by suggesting that these features
are important for individuals while adopting them (Moore & Benbasat, 1991; Rogers, 2003).
Both individual factors and media characteristics must be taken into account while studying adoption processes of social networks
because social network applications have both technological and social dimensions. Similarly, heterogeneous groups of people from all
around the world use these social network applications for interaction, collaboration, communication and sharing.
In this study, some possible factors that may affect Facebook's adoption are discussed in relation to the available models, theories and related
research. After examining these, usefulness, ease of use, social influence, facilitating conditions and community identity are suggested as to be
playing influential role on Facebook's adoption. What follows is the explanation of the factors that enable the adoption process discussed above.

2.1.1. Usefulness
Usefulness can be defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance”
(Davis, 1989). Rogers (2003) called usefulness as relative advantage while defining it as “the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being
better than its precursor.” Usefulness is known to be an an important predictor of a system's acceptance and diffusion (Davis, 1989).
Facebook provides various opportunities among which enabling communication, collaboration, information sharing and enjoyment all
of which are suggested as important factors influencing Facebook's adoption. For the purposes of this study, usefulness is defined as “the
perception formed by the belief that using a particular system enhances individuals' performance while claiming that this particular
innovation is better than its precursors.”
H1: Usefulness will have a significant influence on Facebook adoption.

2.1.2. Ease of use

Ease of use is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort” (Davis, 1989).
Rogers (2003) and Thompson, Higgins, and Howell (1991) considered ease of use as complexity and defined it as “the degree to which
a system is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use”.
An important factor influencing adoption of Facebook is the combination of that specific user's technical skills and his or her competence
in the peculiar features of Facebook such as photo and file uploading and downloading, profile editing, and using the menus. In this study,
ease of use is defined as “using Facebook features easily and managing the overall Facebook content without much effort”.
H2: Ease of use will have a significant influence on Facebook adoption.

2.1.3. Social influence

Social influence can be explained in terms of one's preconceived opinion of how others will judge a particular person's behavior (Fishbein
& Ajzen, 1975; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). Triandis (1980) called social influence as social factors and defined it as “the
individual's internalization of the reference groups' subjective culture, and specific interpersonal agreements that the individual has made
with others, in specific social situations” (Thompson et al., 1991).
Because Facebook is a social utility used by many people, social norms must have a significant role in individuals' use of this tool. While
some members join Facebook to connect with some social environments or to maintain communication with existing friends, some others
become a member of the groups upon their friends' invitation. These show that social influence has a role in people's decisions to take part in
social networking. In this study, social influence is defined as one's perception of how his or her significant others will react upon performing
a behavior, in our case, joining this new social environment (Facebook).
H3: Social Influence will have a significant influence on Facebook adoption.

2.1.4. Facilitating conditions

The term facilitating conditions is defined as “found objective factors in the environment that observers agree to make an act easy to
accomplish, provision of support for users in the case of need or in the case of difficulties and also easily controlling environment according
to own mind (Venkatesh et al., 2003). Facilitating factors (such as the help one gets from others or from the help menu or support services in
managing both content and process) are important for the adoption of Facebook.
In this study, adapting from Venkatesh et al. (2003), facilitating conditions is defined as “accessing supporting and facilitating services
while managing one's own Facebook activities.”
H4: Facilitating Conditions will have a significant influence on Facebook adoption.
 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453 447

2.1.5. Community identity

Community identity is seen as one of the important determinants of an individual's motivation to participate in virtual communities. It is
defined as an “individual's identification with the group in the sense that the person comes to view himself or herself as a member of the
community, as “belonging” (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, 2004).
Especially in social network environments such as Facebook, community identification becomes important because people are socialized
in groups by sharing ideas, resources, materials, continuing discussion and collaboration. For this reason, Facebook supports individuals to
create their own groups or simply join the existing ones that bring people together around shared interests and needs. Community identity
is suggested as an important factor in adoption of Facebook. In this study, community identity is defined as “feeling of belonging to groups in
Facebook by joining to these groups, sharing and collaborating with others in groups.”
H5: Community identity will have a significant influence on Facebook adoption.

2.2. Purposes of Facebook usage

Facebook can be used for different purposes by users with differing interests and purposes. Stutzman (2006) suggested that Facebook is
being used for wasting time, learning about others, maintaining social communication, following updates about friends, school or class.
Lockyer and Patterson (2008) explained that Facebook users can share personal information through their profiles, visit other's profiles to
see information about them, upload, tag and share multimedia content and initiate or join groups based on common interests or pursuits. In
addition to these, Facebook can be used for work related purposes while new business relationships can be formed and existing ones are
maintained although connecting people with shared interests such as music, cinema or politics is an important non-professional purpose of
users (Ellison et al., 2007).
In this study, purposes of Facebook usage are handled under 3 headings: social relations, work related activities and daily activities.

2.2.1. Social relations

Social relations make up an important dimension of Facebook and may include making new friends, maintaining the existing ones and
communicating with them. These social groups include neighbors, family members, groups and other people who share common interests.
H6: Social relations will have a significant influence on purposes of Facebook usage.

2.2.2. Work related

Users' professional purposes may be accessing information, supporting their work in progress by using online and offline functions,
sharing projects, materials, resources, homework or ideas.
H7: Work related purposes will have a significant influence on purposes of Facebook usage.

2.2.3. Daily activity

Users' daily activities can make up their rationale behind joining Facebook. Such daily activities may include wasting time, keeping up-
dated about what's happening around one's social circles, having fun, playing games or joining groups.
H8: Daily activities will have a significant influence on purposes of Facebook usage.

2.3. Educational usage of Facebook

Facebook is seen as a favorable educational tool owing to its structure and various utilities. On the other hand, how and for which
purposes these tools will be used in educational contexts is still awaiting researchers' interest. In the related studies it is argued that
Facebook and other social networks facilitate informal learning because of their active role in members' daily lives. Social network sites
support collaborative learning, engage individuals in critical thinking, enhance communication and writing skills through activating
members work in personalized environments (Ajjan & Hartshorne, 2008; Lockyer & Patterson, 2008). In addition to these, Lee and
McLoughlin (2008) claim that social networks are pedagogical tools because people can use them for connectivity and social support,
collaborative information discovery and sharing, content creation and knowledge and information aggregation and modification.
Considering the educational utilities offered by Facebook such as providing members with intentional or spontaneous learning
opportunities by bringing people together around shared interests, exchanging information, sharing ideas, discussing topics, collaborating
etc., in this study, the construct of educational usage of Facebook is investigated under three topics; communication, collaboration and
resource/material sharing.

2.3.1. Communication
Educational usage of Facebook for communication consist of activities such as enabling communication among students and their
instructors, facilitating class discussions, following announcements about classes and courses, departments or schools, delivery of home-
work and assignments by teachers, informing about resources and links related to courses.
H9: Communication will have a significant influence on educational usage of Facebook.

2.3.2. Collaboration
As Facebook contains different categorical groups and communities, it provides opportunities for members to join new networks in
a way to open up spaces for collaborative learning (Selwyn, 2007b). People can exchange ideas, share information and work together with
which they have common interests, ideas and needs. Educational usage of Facebook for collaboration consist of activities such as people's
joining to academic groups related to their schools, departments or classes and carrying on group works by sharing homework, projects,
ideas, and etc.
H10: Collaboration will have a significant influence on educational usage of Facebook.
448 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453

2.3.3. Resource/material sharing

As people exchange ideas and information in Facebook, they can also share their resources, materials, projects and documents. With its
capabilities such as uploading videos and photos, and adding and following the links to external resources or pages, Facebook provides users
with audio and visual materials and resources. Educational usage of Facebook for resource and material sharing consists of activities such as
exchanging multimedia resources, videos, audio materials, animated videos, resources and documents.
H11: Resource and material sharing will have a significant influence on the educational usage of Facebook.
While constructing the model, firstly, the factors influencing Facebook adoption processes were determined which suggested that
Facebook adoption is closely related with purposes of Facebook usage. This lead to the hypothesis that when people adopt, they use this
adopted material for different purposes in their daily lives. For example, if people perceive something as useful and easy to use, they tend to
adopt it for various tasks necessary in daily lives. Similarly, people may adopt a material because of social or peer pressure the result of which
can be a complex web of identification with various communities.
H12: Facebook adoption will have a significant and positive relationship with purposes of Facebook usage.
Assuming that people attain implicit learning opportunities when they use Facebook, both social dimensions and media characteristics
affect the whole educational context. Hence, it is suggested that together with Facebook adoption, purposes of Facebook users are in
constant influx with the educational usage of Facebook.
H13: Facebook adoption mediated by the purposes of Facebook usage will have a significant and positive relationship with educational
usage of Facebook.

3. Method

3.1. Instrument

Data is collected by means of an online survey which was developed by the researchers. The survey consisted of four sections. In the first
section, demographic characteristics of Facebook users were collected through four questions. Also, members' frequency of Facebook usage,
length of time spent in Facebook, and memberships to Facebook groups were collected within this section.
The second section was composed of a 5-point Likert scale with 12 questions and aimed at gathering the members' purposes of Facebook
usage. In the third section,10-point Likert scale with 11 questions asked members' views of Facebook in relation to its educational usage. In the
fourth section, a 10-point Likert scale with 23 questions collected members' views on the adoption of Facebook in an educational context.
The scale's validity and reliability were tested. For validity, expert opinion was attained to see if the questions were appropriate in
measuring the intended research questions and if the statements were understandable. Based on the feedback received from the experts,
the scale was modified. Then, confirmatory and explanatory analyses were conducted to identify the relations between factors and factor
loads. For the reliability analysis, Cronbach's alpha values were calculated for each of the scales and their sub-factors.
While developing the Facebook adoption scale, diffusion, acceptance, usage and adoption theories and models were reviewed to expand
the coverage of the scale items. A preliminary scale composed of 23 items about the adoption and usage of Facebook was prepared having
examined the existing models and theories such as Roger's (2003) “Diffusion of Innovation”, Fishbein & Ajzen's (1975) “Theory of Reasoned
Action”, Ajzen's (1991) “Theory of Planned Behavior”, Davis' (1989) “Technology Acceptance Model” and Venkatesh et al.'s (2003) “Unified
Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology”. After conducting the confirmatory and explanatory factor analyses of the scale, one item was
excluded from the scale and it was found that the rest of the 22 items consisted of five factors which were usefulness, ease of use, social
influence, facilitating conditions, and community identity. The results of the explanatory factor analysis revealed that the factor loads of items
varied from 0.530 to 0.907. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be 0.909. The Cronbach's alpha values for each
of the factors, factor loadings of the items and goodness of it indexes of confirmatory factor analyze results are presented in the Appendix.
A preliminary scale of 12 items was prepared to investigate members' purposes in using Facebook. After conducting confirmatory and
explanatory analyses, an item was extracted from the scale because of its low factor load. A first order and second order confirmatory factor
analyses were conducted on remaining 11 items. It has been revealed out that purposes of Facebook scale consisted of 3 factors, namely the
purposes about social relations, work-related purposes and purposes on daily activities. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of this
scale was 0.793. The Cronbach's alpha values for each of the factors and goodness of it indexes of confirmatory factor analyze results are
presented in the Appendix.
While developing the scale about educational usage of Facebook, a preliminary scale of 11 items was prepared by considering the
potential educational usage of existing features of Facebook. The first order and second order confirmatory analysis of the scale revealed that
this 11 item scale consisted of 3 factors which were communication, collaboration and resource and material sharing. The Cronbach's alpha
reliability coefficient of this 11 item scale was 0.938. The Cronbach's alpha values for each of the factors and goodness of it indexes of
confirmatory factor analyze results are presented in the Appendix.

3.2. Participants and data collection

Although the total number of the accessed surveyors was 935, the study group consisted of 606 Facebook users who responded to the
online survey accurately. The web address of the survey was spread out in Facebook and people who took the survey forwarded the survey's
link to their friends voluntarily. Also, with the aim of accessing an extensive crowded people survey's link was written on the various
Facebook groups' wall. The survey was kept open for these participants on the web for four weeks. All of the surveyors participated in this
research process voluntarily and any reward or prices promised.
Table 1 summarizes the demographic profile of the participants including their age, gender, educational level in addition to the
descriptive statistics of their frequency of Facebook usage and length of stay in Facebook. As seen in the Table 1, the number of females and
males were nearly equal. Most Facebook users were between 18 and 25 year old and were college students. Most of the participants used
Facebook several times within a day and stayed online in Facebook for approximately half an hour.
 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453 449

4. Data analysis and results

4.1. Testing the structural model

While structuring the equation model to explain educational usage of Facebook, 3 latent variables, namely, Facebook adoption, users'
purposes, and educational usage of Facebook were examined.
Facebook adoption (“adoption”) was an independent- latent variable and “USFLNESS” (usefulness), EASEOF (ease of use), SOC_IMP (social
influence), FACT_FAC (facilitating conditions) and COM_IDEN (community identity) were observed variables (variable x), being accepted as
significant predictors of adoption.
Users' purposes (“purpose”) was dependent- latent variable and “SOC_RELS” (social relations), “WORK_REL” (work related) and “DAI-
LY_AC” (daily activity) were observed variables (variable x), being accepted as significant predictors of purpose.
Educational usage of Facebook (“edu_use”) was another dependent- latent variable and “COMMUNIC” (communication), “COLLABOR”
(collaboration) and “RES_MAT” (resource/material sharing) were observed variables (variable x), being accepted as significant predictors of
educational usage.
The c2 (chi-square)/df (degree of freedom), Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI), Root Mean Square Error of
Approximation (RMSEA), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI) and Incremental Fit Index (IFI) were used to see
appropriateness of the solution and goodness-of-fit of the model whose values are indicated in Table 2.
As shown in Table 2, all the indices exceeded their commonly accepted levels, demonstrating that the measurement model exhibited
a good fit. Standard path coefficients of structural model are given in Fig. 2.
Path coefficients and t-values between observed and latent variables are listed in Table 3.
Estimated structural equation between latent variables and covariance matrix of latent variables are presented below:
edu_use ¼ 0.75* purpose, Errorvar ¼ 0.49, R2 ¼ 0.50
(0.055) (0.049)
13.59 10.04
edu_use ¼ 0.66* adoption, Errorvar ¼ 0.56, R2 ¼ 0.43
(0.044)
14.90
purpose ¼ 0.87* adoption, Errorvar ¼ 0.12 , R2 ¼ 0.86
(0.052)
16.91
Covariance Matrix of Latent Variables

edu_use purpose adoption

edu_use 0.99
purpose 0.67 0.89
adoption 0.66 0.87 1.00

All of the coefficients between adoption and its observed variables are found to be significant (p < .005 or t > 1.96). This result showed
that five observed variables, namely usefulness, ease of use, social influence, facilitating conditions and community identity have significant
positive influence on adoption (b ¼ 0.84, b ¼ 0.35, b ¼ 0.50, b ¼ 65, b ¼ 65). (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 supported).

Table 1
Demographic profiles and descriptive statistics of the surveyors.

Item Frequency Percentage (%)

Gender Female 309 48.7
Male 295 51

Age 18e25 449 74.1

26e35 125 20.6
36e40 22 3.6
41 10 1.7

Educational level Secondary education 39 6.4

College 425 70.1
Graduate student 139 22.9

Frequency of Facebook usage Several times in a day 286 47.2

Once in a day 138 22.8
Several times in a month 157 25.9
Once in a month 22 3.6
Several times in a year 3 0.5

Length of stay in Facebook Less than 15 min 200 33.1

Approximately half an hour 235 38.8
Approximately an hour 90 14.9
1e3 h 51 8.4
More than 3 h 29 4.8
450 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453

Table 2
Model fit indices for the measurement model (Schermelleh-Engel & Moosbrugger, 2003).

Fit indexes Perfect fit Accepted values Model results

RMSEA 0 < RMSEA < 0.05 0.05 < RMSEA < 0.08 0.066
IFI 0.95 < IFI < 1 0.090 < IFI < 0.95 0.98
NNFI 0.97 < NNFI < 1 0.095 < NNFI < 0.97 0.97
CFI 0.97 < CFI < 1 0.95 < CFI < 0.97 0.98
GFI 0.95 < GFI < 1 0.90 < GFI < 0.95 0.96
AGFI 0.90 < AGFI < 1 0.85 < AGFI < 0.90 0.93
X2/df X2/df < 3 3 < X2/df < 5 3.67

All of the coefficients between purposes of Facebook usage and its observed variables are found to be significant (p < .005 or t > 1.96).
This result supported that the three observed variables, namely social relations, work related and daily activity have significantly positive
influence on purpose (b ¼ 0. 71, b ¼ 0.41, b ¼ 0.52). (H6, H7, H8 supported).
All the coefficients between educational usage of Facebook and its observed variables are also significant (p < .005 or t > 1.96). This result
supported that the three observed variables namely; communication, collaboration and resource and material sharing have a significant
positive effect on educational usage (b ¼ 0.87, b ¼ 0.87, b ¼ 0.84). (H9, H10, H11 supported).
When the effect of Facebook adoption on purposes of Facebook usage is examined, standardized path coefficient is found to be 0.95 and
the t-value is found to be 16.91. Hence, this result supports the view that Facebook adoption has a significant positive effect on users'
purposes (p < .005) (H12 supported). In addition to this, it is found that Facebook adoption with its determinants account for approximately
86% (R2) of the variance of purposes of Facebook usage.
When the effect of users' purposes on the educational usage of Facebook is examined, the standardized path coefficient is found to be
0.71 and the t-value is found to be 13.59. Hence, this result supports the view that purposes of Facebook usage has a significant positive
effect on the educational usage of Facebook (p < .005) (H13 supported). Similarly, it is found those users' purposes with their determinants
by Facebook adoption account for approximately 50% (R2) of the variance of educational usage of Facebook.
When the direct effect of Facebook adoption on the educational usage of Facebook is considered, it is found that Facebook adoption
accounts for approximately 45% of variance of educational usage of Facebook solely while it accounts for approximately 50% of variance
together and mediated by purposes of Facebook usages.

5. Findings and discussion

In this study, a structural equation model is tested to explain the educational use of Facebook. With the help of this model,
educational use of Facebook is examined in three dimensions of Facebook's uses for communication, collaboration, and resource/
material sharing. While testing the model, educational use of Facebook is explained directly by purposes of Facebook usage and
indirectly by Facebook adoption.
Facebook adoption is found to have a significant positive relationship with usefulness, ease of use, social influence, facilitating
conditions and community identity. Usefulness is determined as the most important factor in predicting the adoption of Facebook. This
finding is consistent with those of previous research on adoption or acceptance of an innovation in a system (King & He, 2006; Ngai, Poon,
& Chan, 2007; van Raaij & Schepers, 2008). Therefore, usefulness as perceived by Facebook users can be suggested as one of the major
reasons for the rapid adoption of Facebook and the rapid increase in the number of its users.

USFLNESS
0.30

0.07
0.84 COMMUNIC 0.25
EASEOF
0.88
0.35 0.87
0.93 0.71
adoption purpose edu_use COLLABOR
0.50
0.87
0.75 SOC_IMP 0.25

0.37 0.65 0.84

RES_MAT
0.71 0.41 0.52 0.29
FACT_FAC 0.65
0.58

0,58
COM_IDEN
SOC_RELS WORK_REL DAILY_AC

0.49 0.84 0.73

0.14 0.16

Fig. 2. The result of proposed research model (standardized coefficients).Ă

 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453 451

Table 3
Path coefficients and T-values.

Latent variables Observed variables Path coefficients T-value

adoption Usefulness 0.84 23.10
Ease of use 0.35 7.75
Social influence 0.50 12.08
Facilitating conditions 0.65 16.69
Community identity 0.65 16.63

purpose Social relations 0.71 Fixed

Work related 0.41 9.49
Daily activity 0.52 11.33

edu_use Communication 0.87 Fixed

Collaboration 0.87 26.34
Resource/material 0.84 25.48

The findings also revealed that users' purposes have a significant positive relationship with users' social relations, work related issues
and daily activities. This finding is consistent with previous researches. Similarly, Lenhart and Madden (2007) found that 55% of teenagers
use social networks and they use essentially for social relations (make new friends, stay in touch existing friends, contact with friends), also
for making plans with friends, scheduling and coordinating meetings, posting messages etc. In addition, Joinson (2008) reported that people
use social networks to keep in touch with old friends, find the lost contacts, communicate with the like-minded people, join groups with
shared interests, organize or join events, view and tag photos, share/post photographs, play games. In this study, using Facebook
purposefully for attaining new social relations has revealed itself as the most important factor among all of the purposes collected. This can
be associated with the fact that Facebook is defined as a social utility where people make new friends or maintain the existing ones. In
addition to this, it was revealed out that people who use Facebook intensively also use it for killing time and having fun.
Although it is found that the educational use of Facebook has a significant positive relationship with its use for communication, collaboration
and resource or material sharing, it is revealed that the three dimensions of Facebook's educational uses have approximately equal distributions.
This study has also found that users' purposes in using Facebook have a significant positive relationship with Facebook adoption. This
finding shows that users' perceptions of adoption of an innovation have a major role on the usage of an innovation. It can be suggested that
maintaining social relations is one of the important factors in shaping the perceptions of users in terms of Facebook's usefulness because
users' purposes have a positive relation with adoption, usefulness is found to be the most important factor in the overall adoption process,
and keeping social relations is the most common purpose for the users.
In addition, it is found that Facebook adoption mediated by purposes of Facebook usage accounted approximately 50% of the
variance of educational use of Facebook while having a positive relationship. This finding is interpreted as an indicator of who use
Facebook for various tasks, implicitly or intentionally having informal learning opportunities provided by this medium. Similarly, it can
be suggested that using Facebook with the purpose of maintaining social relations is related with utilization for communication.
While Facebook users who participated in this study keep their relationships and communication with their colleagues, classmates or
people with whom they are studying, they also exchange information, share ideas and views during this communication process.
Selwyn (2007a) found that students' use of Facebook in educational contexts could be categorized under five themes, namely
recounting and reflecting on their university experience, exchanging practical information, exchanging academic information, and
exchanging humorous or entertaining materials all of which support the findings reached in our study in that utilizing Facebook in
daily activities is closely related with its educational utilization.
Finally, it is also found that Facebook adoption solely explained 45% of variance of educational usage of Facebook, while mediated
purposes of Facebook usage explained 50% of the overall variance. This finding shows that people first use an innovation in their everyday
lives for different purposes while considering its usefulness, ease of use or social influence. Then, these purposes initiate and shape the
educational usage of that innovation with its compatibility, potential and interaction with the surrounding educational context.
This study has some certain limitations. Firstly, because the data was collected by means of an online survey, the accuracy of responses to
questions about demographic information as age, gender, and education level could not be controlled by the researchers. Although the IP
address of each participant was kept recorded to prevent multiple logging, the condition of a person who could fill in the survey more than
once from different computers could not be controlled.

6. Conclusion and recommendation

Social networks are currently used by highly heterogeneous people with different ages, education levels, gender, social status, language,
and culture who participate and incorporate social networks into their daily lives. As one of these social networks, Facebook has attracted
many people, especially young people, from different backgrounds and diffused rapidly. Facebook users who participated in this study
consisted mostly of university students (70%) who were between the ages of 18e25 (74% of all participants). Through a personal profile
provided by Facebook, users can make a list of their friends, create photo albums, write on their friend's walls, join kinds of interest groups to
share ideas, views, documents or resources and get feedback.
In this study, assuming that people experience informal learning in personalized environments such as those offered by Facebook that
plays a major role in people's lives and used actively in daily life, the constructs related to Facebook usage were aimed to be explained as
perceived by its users. Hence, future research should shed light on all aspects and dimensions of social network sites such as Facebook,
especially by considering their place in college students' lives who happen to be the most active users of them. Different dimensions of
learning occurring in social network sites can be examined with a shift from a structured (often traditional) environment to an informal and
flexible environment in which students feel more comfortable.
452 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453

Because “usefulness” has revealed itself as the most important determinant of Facebook, antecedents of usefulness can be examined as in
TAM2 (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000). Rogers (2003) called usefulness as “relative advantage” and in different researches, relative advantage is
studied as individuals' perception of using an innovation is relatively useful (Askar & Usluel, 2002). In further researches antecedents of both
usefulness and relative advantage could be examined.
While determining the factors affecting the adoption of Facebook, different constructs or dimensions of adoption can be added onto the
constructs used in this model. In addition, different variables that are suggested important for effective and active education, such as users'
satisfaction, motivation or social presence, in Facebook can be explained by means of different structural equation models.

Appendix
Reliability coefficients of Facebook adoption scale constructs.

Constructs Items Factor loads Reliability

Usefulness U1 0.802 0.838
U2 0.833
U3 0.588
U4 0.598

Ease of use EU1 0.664 0.897

EU2 0.863
EU3 0.907
EU4 0.839

Social influence SE1 0.828 0.843

SE2 0.879
SE3 0.628
SE4 0.785

Facilitating conditions FC1 0.708 0.849

FC2 0.716
FC3 0.679
FC4 0.546
FC5 0.633
FC6 0.530
FC7 0.585

Community identity CI1 0.766 0.864

CI2 0.849
CI3 0.849

Second order confirmatory factor analysis goodness of fit indexes of Facebook adoption scale.

Fit measure Good fit Acceptable fit Model value

c2/d c2/d < 3 3 < c2/d < 5 2.96
RMSEA 0 < RMSEA < 0.05 0.05 < RMSEA<0.08 0.057
S-RMR 0  S-RMR  0.05 0.05<S-RMR < 0,1 0.058
NNFI 0.97  NNFI  1 0.95 < NNFI < 0,97 0.97
CFI 0.97  CFI  1 0.95 < CFI < 0,97 0.98
GFI 0.95  GFI  1 0.90 < GFI < 0,95 0.92
AGFI 0.0  AGFI  1 0.85 < AGFI < 0,90 0.90
IFI 0.95  IFI  1 0.90 < IFI < 0,95 0.98

Reliability coefficients of purposes of Facebook usage scale constructs.

Constructs Reliability
Social relations 0.681
Work related 0.813
Daily 0.871

Second order confirmatory factor analysis goodness of fit indexes of Facebook usage scale.
Fit measure Good fit Acceptable fit Model value
c2/d c2/d < 3 3 < c2/d < 5 2.04
RMSEA 0 < RMSEA < 0.05 0.05 < RMSEA < 0.08 0.041
S-RMR 0  S-RMR  0.05 0.05 < S-RMR < 0.1 0.029
NNFI 0.97  NNFI  1 0.95 < NNFI < 0.97 0.98
CFI 0.97  CFI  1 0.95 < CFI < 0.97 0.99
GFI 0.95  GFI  1 0.90 < GFI < 0.95 0.98
AGFI 0.90  AGFI  1 0.85 < AGFI < 0.90 0.96
IFI 0.95  IFI  1 0.90 < IFI < 0.95 0.99
 S.G. Mazman, Y.K. Usluel / Computers & Education 55 (2010) 444e453 453

Reliability coefficients of educational usage of Facebook scale constructs.

Constructs Reliability
Communication 0.902
Collaboration 0.848
Resource and material sharing 0.853

Second order confirmatory factor analysis goodness of fit indexes of educational usage of Facebook scale.

Fit measure Good fit Acceptable fit Model value

c2 c2/d < 3 3 < c2/d < 5 3.8
RMSEA 0 < RMSEA < 0.05 0.05 < RMSEA < 0.08 0.068
S-RMR 0  S-RMR  0.05 0.05<S-RMR < 0.1 0.027
NNFI 0.97  NNFI  1 0.95 < NNFI < 0.97 0.99
CFI 0.97  CFI  1 0.95 < CFI < 0.97 0.99
GFI 0.95  GFI  1 0.90 < GFI < 0.95 0.96
AGFI 0.90  AGFI  1 0.85 < AGFI < 0.90 0.93
IFI 0.95  IFI  1 0.90 < IFI < 0.95 0.99

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