Using social media in formal learning: Investigating learning strategies and satisfaction

Social media have been widely adopted by digital natives for learning purposes due to the wealth of educational resources afforded by these platforms. As such, educational researchers and practitioners have been advocating the integration of social media in formal learning. While a majority of research has highlighted the benefits of using social media in formal education, still lacking is research that examines students' learning behaviors and experience with social media. From the perspective of self-regulated learning, we investigate students' learning strategies in social media, as well as the relationship between using these strategies and students' learning satisfaction. Drawing on a survey of 270 undergraduate and graduate students, we found that in the formal learning context, students employed four types of self-regulated learning strategies (i.e., goal setting, environment structuring, performance control and self-evaluation) to achieve effective learning with social media. Among the four strategies, goal setting was most commonly used. Further, a regression analysis revealed that all four types of self-regulated learning strategies were significantly related to students' learning satisfaction with social media, while goal setting was the most prominent strategy. This article concludes by presenting limitations as well as implications for research and practice.