International Review of Research in Open and Distributed L

 
The Role of Social Media for Collaborative Learning to Improve Academic Performance of Students and Researchers 
Al-Rahmi, Othman, and Yusuf 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 
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Table 5 also reveals that collaborative learning positively and significantly related with academic 
performance of students and researchers (β = 0.272, p < 0.001) and thus supporting hypothesis 
H9 that proposed a significant relationship between collaborative learning and academic 
performance of students and researchers. Thus, the students and researchers learn how to work 
with others effectively through collaborative learning brought about by social media. The findings 
also confirmed that interactivity with research group members and peers positively and 
significantly related with engagement (β = 0.239, p < 0.001). Hence, hypothesis H2 that proposed 
a significant relationship between interactivity with research group members and engagement in 
social media. Thus, social media allows the exchange of information with lecturers and facilitates 
discussion with supervisors. Along the same line of results, interactivity with supervisors was 
found to significantly relate to collaborative learning (β = 0.214, p < 0.001) indicating support for 
the third hypothesis. It can thus be stated that actively developing problem solving skills with 
supervisors through social media facilitates discussion with them. 
Furthermore, the results showed that engagement positively and significantly related with 
academic performance of students and researchers (β = 0.194, p < 0.001) and this result supports 
hypothesis H11. Hence, academic performance of students and researchers improves when they 
engage and share information and knowledge with research group members and supervisors or 
lecturers through social media. The next result confirmed that interactivity with research group 
members positively and significantly related with collaborative learning through social media (β = 
0.168, p < 0.001). Thus, hypothesis H1 that proposed a significant relationship between 
interactivity with research group members and collaborative learning is supported. Therefore, 
researchers need to share their ideas and knowledge with the members of their research group. 
Also, hypothesis H6 was confirmed as the results showed that intention to use social media 
positively and significantly related with engagement (β = 0.166, p < 0.001). In other words, 
researchers need intention to use social media to improve their engagement with research group 
members, supervisors, or lecturers. The final hypothesis, hypothesis four was also confirmed as 
the result showed that interactivity with supervisor or lecturers positively and significantly related 
with engagement (β = 0.135, p < 0.001) although the level of significance is low.