Factors driving the adoption of Facebook in higher education

Abstract

Facebook, behavioral intention, higher education, adoption

Social network sites in general, and Facebook in particular, allow users with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate, creating new forms of informal learning. In order to understand and eventually take advantage of the many benefits that Facebook can bring to the academic world, we need to study its adoption process. The objective of this article is to identify the factors that may motivate university students to adopt and use Facebook as an educational tool. We aim to contribute to the existing literature by adding a unique approach to examine this question, incorporating theories and constructs from the well-developed technology acceptance theory. According to our results, Performance Expectancy of Students is the most important factor on predicting the Behavioral Intention to Use Facebook for academic purposes, followed by Appropriateness for Academic Setting and Compatibility With Academic Work.