Students’ attitude toward SHAD application as an Educational Social Network

The purpose of the present study was to examine high-school students’ attitude toward ofSHAD as an educational social network based on Davis’s Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)considering their gender and educational level. ۲۰۰ high-school students participated in thestudy. They were female and male from Tarbiat Technical School and Aboozar junior highschool in zarrinshahr. They completed Educational Social Network Acceptance Scale (ESNAS)adapted to the context of the study to measure the participates’ acceptance of SHAD as aneducation social network. ESNAS has ۳۰ items and five components based on TAM: externalvariables, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitudes, and intention to use. The datawere analyzed by Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). The results showed thatgenerally the students do not accept SHAD as an educational social network despite its perceivedease of use. Further analysis revealed significant differences in students’ acceptance of SHAD asan educational social network considering their gender and educational level. The result impliedacceptance of SHAD as an educational network by male and senior high-school students. Thefindings have practical implications for the ministry of education and materials developers anddraw their attention to the key role students’ perceptions of the social networks designed foreducational purposes play in students’ intention and actual use of that network for their studies.

Keywords:

technology attitude , SHAD , social network , gender , educational level