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SAUDI STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARD USING SOCIAL MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES AS A SUPPORTIVE TOOL IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

With the widespread use of digital media, a new era of communication interaction has incurred. More people are using a broad range of modern technologies for different purposes in educational. However, pedagogical research in the use of these technologies for educational purposes is scarce, particularly for English language learning and teaching. Determining the success of a learning tool is based on its acceptance among students. This doctorate project seeks to understand students’ attitude toward using social media technologies to support English language learning. A pilot survey was used in this project to understand students’ attitude toward using social media technologies to support English language learning. Davis’s (1985) technology acceptance model (TAM) was used to determine independent variables including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, subjective norm, and experience with social media technologies, that may predict the dependent variable of this study which was the student’s attitude. Forty students (N=40) in a university in Saudi Arabia have participated in this study. Statistical analysis software SPSS was used to analyse the survey data. Descriptive analysis and multiple regression were used to find out the students’ attitude as well as which independent variables could play a unique role in predicting such an attitude. The result of the descriptive analysis indicated that the participants had a positive attitude toward using social media technologies to support English learning. The multiple regression result indicated that experience with social media technologies and subjective norm explained something unique in predicting the students’ attitude. The study also showed that social media technologies could be used as a supportive and motivational tool in EFL classes to provide a better English environment in Saudi Arabia.