The Use of Social Media to Enrich Information

Systems Field Trip Experiences

Laddawan Kaewkitipong

, Charlie Chen

and Peter Ractham

Department of Management Information Systems, Thammasat Business School, Bangkok, Thailand

Department of Computer Information Systems, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, U.S.A.

Keywords: Social Media, Field Trips, Continuance Intention, User Satisfaction.

Abstract: A well-designed field trip can promote active learning and reinforce classroom materials (Kisiel, 2006).

Few studies examine the potential of using social media to enhance IS field trip experiences by promoting

active and collaborative learning. One major barrier to the exploitation of this potential is the adoption of

social media by students as a learning tool to enhance field trip experiences. Therefore, the first and

foremost task is to understand the motivation and satisfaction of students with the use of social media to

enhance IS field trip. The research set to understand factors that could help increase students’ satisfaction

with the use of social media to enhance IS fieldtrip and an intention to continue to do so in future field trips.

The research shows that to help increase user satisfaction with the use of social media to enhance field trip

study and an intention to do so, course instructors should ensure that students perceive the use of social

media for enhancing field trip study as effortless, useful, and well used and accepted by their peers. Future

research may further study how we should incorporate the use of social media to better enhance the field

trip learning performance.

1 INTRODUCTION

An information systems (IS) field trip is a planned

excursion to non-regular school environment, such

as information technology (IT) companies, software

vendors, IT centers, and IT expos. Many studies

have shown that a well-designed field trip can

promote active learning and reinforce classroom

materials (Kisiel, 2006). Learning by doing has been

proven as an effective pedagogy to acquire

information technology skills and concepts

(Lahtinen, et al., 2005). The on-site learning

experience enables information systems (IS)

students not only to learn by hearing and seeing but

also to learn by doing. Thus, regardless of learning

styles most IS students can benefit from educational

field trips. In addition, IS students can better

interpret learning materials in a real setting or

structure they can feel and touch. For instance, to

learn about the ability of robots students can visit an

expo to interact with different robot models and test

their functions and limitations. As a result, IS

students are more likely to have richer learning

experiences from field trips than from regular

classroom settings.

On the other hand, a growing number of students

and instructors consider the time and efforts spent in

organizing field trips are not rewarding since

information about those sites are easily accessible

from online sources, such as vendor website,

YouTube, and other social media. Although social

media continues seeing its global emergence, the

uncertainty of information accuracy and credibility

on those social media is mixed at best. Using social

media to replace IS field trips may not capture the

essence of active learning. How to incorporate

social media into the design of IS field trips and

promote active learning experiences remains

challenging for many IS educators and educational

administrators.

Collaborative learning requires a social

environment be created so that learners within the

environment can converse with each other, present

and defend their ideas, expose to diverse beliefs, and

engage in the active learning process (Smith and

MacGregor, 1992). A successful field trip relies on

the sharing and exchange of useful information (e.g.

latest product news, tips about visiting each

attraction, lesson learned, and webminars, and

slides) among participants, including vendors,

Kaewkitipong L., Chen C. and Ractham P..

The Use of Social Media to Enrich Information Systems Field Trip Experiences.

DOI: 10.5220/0005122600140021

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on e-Business (ICE-B-2014), pages 14-21

ISBN: 978-989-758-043-7

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

attendees, industry experts, etc. Therefore, each

field trip itself is a social environment for

collaborative learning.

On top of the physical social space, social media

could further offer unlimited virtual space for

continuous collaborative learning (Gerlach, 1994)

before, during and after each field trip. For instance,

before attending an information technology expo,

attendees can follow the latest news posted by a

vendor about its cutting-edge products through live

tweeting. During the expo, attendees can re-tweet or

rebroadcast to their friends if they like what they

see. After the expo, attendees can post pictures and

share what they learn on Facebook. In addition, they

can connect with industry leaders, social leaders,

internship opportunities, professional alumni, and

potential employers. All these actions can enforce

the learning effectiveness. However, very few

studies examine the potential of using social media

to enhance IS field trip experiences by promoting

active and collaborative learning.

One major barrier to the exploitation of this

potential is the adoption of social media by college

students as a learning tool to enhance IS field trip

experiences. Therefore, the first and foremost task is

to understand the motivation of students in this

context with regard to their satisfaction with social

media-enhanced IS field trip, and intention to do so.

The purposes of this paper are to (1) investigate

three primary antecedents, including social

influence, perceived usefulness, and effort

expectancy, for user satisfaction in IS field trips, and

(2) assess which one of them has the strongest

influence on user satisfaction, thereby increasing the

continuance intention of using social media to enrich

IS field trip experiences.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 The Efficacy of Learning about

Information Technology Concepts

and Skills via Field Trips

A successful computer or management information

systems (MIS) program needs to develop technical

and people skills for students in order to have them

excel in industry and government. The acquisition

and development of technical and people skills

requires that learners not only observe, interpret and

model IT technology, but also use different

technologies to solve business problems. Field trips

provide a wide variety of avenues for learners to

develop technical and people skills, such as first-

hand experiencing cutting edge technologies in an IT

expo and interacting with chief information officers

or system administrators in a company visit to

understand new IT applications and implementation

challenges. Field trips allow learners to experience,

interpret, reflect and develop transferrable skills

suited to the workplace (Clark, 1996). As a result,

students can learn technical and people skills more

effectively via IT field trips than regular classrooms.

From the pedagogical perspective, a field study

provides the process of creating meaning in context

(Squire and Klopfer, 2007) while the controlled

learning environment (e.g. classroom and lab) is

considered learning out of context. Learning in

context can engage students in reflection (Boud et

al., 1985) and learning from experience (Kolb,

1984). Direct guidance from a formal instructor is

often missing from the field study setting because

learning can take place at any time in anywhere

through interaction with peers or any persons in

contact during the trip. Therefore, socialization

process is often indispensible to the satisfactory

completion of a field study for students. The

emergence of social technology provides

opportunities for educators to incorporate them into

IT field trips and enhance the experiential learning

experience.

2.2 The Potential Benefits of Using

Social Media to Enhance IS Field

Trip Experiences

Social media are online applications that enable

people to create, collaborate, edit, categorize,

exchange, and promote information with each other

via wired and wireless devices (Kietzmann, et al.,

2011). Information dissemination is bottom-up, not

top down. The more people who contribute

information the better the content becomes and the

more content is shared among community members.

In addition, social media has the ability to record

images, audios and videos, as well as provide

location-based and time-related information (e.g.

timeline). The rich content on social media allows

users to share what they learn from other places and

other people. Therefore, social media could become

part of the field experience itself.

These days, most social media are readily

available and accessible via mobile technology (e.g.

smart phone, tablet and laptop); therefore, they can

be useful during the IT field trip. Students can enter

and share information on social media immediately

after meeting with new people or learning interesting

TheUseofSocialMediatoEnrichInformationSystemsFieldTripExperiences

technologies. Since all students learn different

experiences during the trip, sharing with each other

can amplify and maximize the learning experiences

for all students. All the information collected from

field trips can also be posted on social media and

then presented in the classroom for reflective

learning. This collaborative learning exercise can

help students assess whether their collected

information is accurate, and whether they had

missed any information during the field trip

(Whatley and Bell, 2003; Laal and Ghodsi, 2012).

Thus, the creative use of social media has the

potential of providing reflective and collaborative

learning, thereby enhancing field trip experiences.

However, to our knowledge, a very limited

number of educators are capitalizing on the potential

of using social media to enhance field trip

experiences. In order to assess the potential, it is

imperative to first assess whether students would be

motivated to use social media during and after the

field trip. From a user’s perspective, social and

technical factors could impact their decision in

adopting social technology for field trips. The

following discussion will be centered on the

importance and influence of these factors on user

satisfaction with the use of social media in IT field

trips.

2.3 The Influence of Social Influence

on User Satisfaction with the Use of

Social Media in IS Field Trips

User satisfaction is widely adopted to evaluate IS

effectiveness or success (Paulemelone, 1990). To

enhance user satisfaction, social influence is

regarded as one of the critical elements (Lu et al.,

2005). Social influence refers to perceived

pressure/support from social networks to do or

decide on something. It can influence user

satisfaction of a new tool or system, because

individual users are generally uncomfortable with

changes or unsure consequences, therefore, tend to

ask/listen to opinions from those in his or her social

networks (Burkhardt and Brass, 1990).

Social influence has positive influence on user

satisfaction in the case of Facebook (Park et al.,

2009). In case of IS field trips, social media is

considered a natural place to discover the

events/trips and others’ experiences of the

events/trips (Benson et al., 2011). By identifying all

these events/places including opinions and

experiences shared by others, we can enable a

powerful search, which in turn helps increase user

satisfactions with the use of social media as a search

tool (Becker et al., 2009). We therefore propose:

Hypothesis 1: Increasing social influence has

positive effect on the increase of user satisfaction

with the use of social media in the field trip.

2.4 The Influence of Perceived

Usefulness on User Satisfaction

with the Use of Social Media in IS

Field Trips

Perceived usefulness is one of the strongest factors

influencing end-user satisfaction (Mahmood, et al.,

2000). Users usually form intentions and

satisfactions toward an information system based on

an appraisal of how it will improve their job

performance. In other words, we could call such

appraisal a perceived value. Users, who perceive an

information system as providing value, are more

likely to be satisfied with the system (Bhattacherjee,

2001). Therefore, any information system perceived

useful by its users is likely to be accepted. In the

case of IT field trip, social media needs to add

additional values in order to provide satisfactory

experiences for users. Value added activities could

be real-time updates about any ongoing events, peer-

to-peer experience sharing, latest event

announcement, etc. If social media can increase

user’s perceived usefulness about the use of social

media, they are more likely to be satisfied with the

social media-enabled field trip experience. We

therefore propose:

Hypothesis 2: Increasing users’ perceived

usefulness has positive effect on the increase of

user satisfaction with the use of social media in the

field trip

2.5 The Influence of Effort Expectancy

on User Satisfaction with the Use of

Social Media in IS Field Trips

According to the Unified theory of acceptance and

use of technology (UTAUT), effort expectancy is a

direct determinant of use (Venkatesh et al., 2003).

UTAUT posits that one’s effort will help achieve

desired performance (e.g. use and satisfaction).

When users expect to spend less effort in achieving

the same desired outcome, they tend to be more

confident and have a higher degree of perceived

control over the expected outcomes. In other words,

users are more likely to express their satisfaction

with the task on hand if its effort expectancy is low.

ICE-B2014-InternationalConferenceone-Business

In the case of using social media to enrich field trip

experiences, users need to be convinced that the

application is effortless in order to engage in the

experience and are satisfied with it. We therefore

propose:

Hypothesis 3: Increasing users’ low effort

expectancy has positive effect on the increase of

user satisfaction with the use of social media in IS

field trips

2.6 The Effect of User Satisfaction on

the Continuance Intention of using

Social Media in IS Field Trips

Continuance intention to use is central to the success

and survival of an information system

(Bhattacherjee, 2001). This is particularly true for

the case of electronic commerce and other online

tools, because they are at the core of business. For

example, user satisfaction with an e-commerce

website means a lot to the survival of that e-

commerce business. Similarly, user satisfaction with

a social network site could impact the survival of

that social media. The relationship between user

satisfaction and a continuance intention to use

information systems is well supported by previous

research (Cheung and Lee, 2009; Lin et al., 2005).

These studies show a strong positive effect of user

satisfaction on a continuance intention to use IS. For

example, Lin et al. (2005) find that users’

continuance intention to reuse a website is

influenced by user satisfaction. Chea and Luo (2006)

also confirm that consumer satisfaction has a

significant impact on the continuance intention to

use an e-service. Similarly, Chiu et al. (2005) find

user satisfaction contributes significantly to the

user’s intention to reuse an e-learning site. In the

context of Facebook, user satisfaction appears to be

significantly influential on users’ continuance

intention to use the social media (Shi et al., 2010).

When applying social media into the field trip

experience, users are more likely to continue to do

so if they are satisfied with their previous

experience. We therefore propose:

Hypothesis 4: Increasing user satisfaction has

positive effect on user’s continuance intention with

the use of social media in IS field trips

Theoretical model (Figure 1) is proposed based

on the literature review.

Figure 1: Theoretical model.

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

We conducted a field-experiment with 169

participants, which were all taking an IS course.

Their age ranges from 18-22 years old. As

mentioned in above section, we believed that by

having students learned about IT products through

social media channel where they can interact with

other potential customers online would enable them

to get more information. In addition, by having them

physically taken a field trip to an IT fair would also

increase their satisfaction with using the social

media as a means to learn.

For this purpose, we had designed a two-step

field-experiment to enhance the field trip experience

and increase participants’ satisfaction in regard to

learning about IT products. In the first step, the

researchers asked the participants to spend 1 week to

browse, review and discuss with other potential

customers on three popular IT related products and

service providers in Thailand. The participants were

asked to join the Facebook Fanpage of 1) Sony

Electronic, 2) Jabra Accessory and 3) Advance Info

Service (AIS), a mobile network operator in

Thailand. We gave the following guidelines to the

participants: 1) participants were asked to learn

about the products and services from the three fan

pages 2) participants must inquire at least 3

questions about the product or services they are

interested in on the fan page and 3) participants must

write a short note of the product impressions they

have from the experience on 3 fan pages.

Psychologists believe that people can hold around 5

to 7 items in memory for about only 20 to 30

seconds (Cherry, 2014). Thus, these notes can help

participants capture as much of their experiential

learning experience as possible before they forget.

After the first step was completed within 1 week

period, each participant was asked to visit the three

product booths at Commart Thailand 2013, a

popular IT fair. Each participant spent at least 10

minutes at each booth and learned about the

products and services by asking the representatives

who stationed at the booth. They were asked to write

TheUseofSocialMediatoEnrichInformationSystemsFieldTripExperiences

down notes on what they have learned. After the

second step was done, the researchers conducted a 3-

hour lab experiment where participants were asked

to join a group of five and discuss on what they have

learned from the field trip. Such a group was formed

to familiarize participants with different perspectives

and share their learning experience with other

participants. In the end, all participants were asked

to take an online survey to conclude this study. The

survey was aimed to learn whether they were

satisfied with the use of social media to learn about

the products before, during and after the IT field trip,

and what factors could positively affect user

satisfaction, which in turn could lead to continuance

intention.

After attending the IT fair, students were

required to complete an online questionnaire survey.

The survey instrument includes questions to measure

five constructs in the research model. Items used to

measure students’ continuance intention and

perceived usefulness of using social media to enrich

field trip experiences were adapted from

Bhattacherjee (2001). Social influence items were

adopted from Lu et al. (2005). Effort expectancy

items were modified based on Venkatesh et al.

(2003)’s study. Satisfaction items were adopted from

DeLone and McLean (1992). All questionnaire items

were measured on a 1-5 Likert scale: (1) = strongly

disagree, (3) = neutral and (5) = strongly agree.

4 DATA ANALYSIS AND

RESULTS

We performed two tests, including Kaiser-Meyer-

Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett, to assess whether all

measurement items yield distinct factors. Table 1

summarizes test results for all five constructs. All

KMO values are equal to or higher than 0.5, the

minimum acceptable threshold value. The

correlation matrix is not an identical matrix since all

Barlett’s sphere values are statistically significant.

These positive test results warrant the Structured

Equation Modeling (SEM) test.

The SEM test was performed using the

SmartPLS (Partial Least Squares) tool. All

hypothesized relationships among these five

constructs were analyzed. PLS has minimal

restriction on sample size and residual distribution

(Chin et al. 2003). Hair et al. (2011) recommend that

PLS-SEM minimum sample size should be at least

ten times the largest number of structural paths

directed at a particular latent construct in the

structural model. Since there are four paths directed

to the latent construct in the research model, 40

samples are the minimum sample size. A total of

169 data sets were collected and entered for

SmartPLS data analysis.

Table 1: Factor analysis.

Factors KMO Test Bartlett’s Sphere

Social Influence

(SI)

0.718 p=0.00<0.01

Perceived

Usefulness (PU)

0.688 p=0.00<0.01

Effort Expectancy

(EE)

0.630 p=0.00<0.01

User Satisfaction

(US)

0.724 p=0.00<0.01

Continuance

Intention (CI)

0.500 p=0.00<0.01

4.1 Measurement Model

Our research instrument was further assessed with

regard to the reliability of the items used to measure

each construct. Assessment tools used in this study

include Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability,

convergent, and discriminant tests (Table 2). All

Cronbach’s alpha values exceed the generally

accepted minimum threshold value of 0.7, indicating

that all items used to measure each construct have

high internal consistency and carry the same weight

(George and Mallery, 2003). Composite reliability

values are higher than the threshold value of 0.7,

indicating that each factor has high internal

consistency (Chin, 1998; Chin, et al., 2003).

Table 2: Construct and Composite Reliability Test Results.

Constructs Composite

Reliability

Cronbach’s

Alpha Values

Social Influence

(SI)

0.9280 0.8448

Perceived

Usefulness (PU)

0.8384 0.7105

Effort

Expectancy (EE)

0.8629 0.7623

User Satisfaction

(US)

0.9446 0.9119

Continuance

Intention (CI)

0.9091 0.8499

Convergent and discriminant validity tests were

performed to assess construct validity. Table 3

shows that the square root of each construct’s AVE

(Average Variance Extracted) is larger than their

correlation with other constructs, and item loadings

on hypothesized constructs are greater than 0.5

(Wixom and Watson, 2001). This indicates that the

validity of each construct is high because the

ICE-B2014-InternationalConferenceone-Business

variance explained by each construct is larger than

the measurement error variance.

Table 3: Convergent and Discriminant Validity Test

Results.

CI EE PU US SI

CI 0.9304

EE 0.4581 0.7964

PU 0.5174 0.5816 0.8229

US 0.5204 0.4909 0.4861 0.9222

SI 0.4986 0.4586 0.4731 0.4070 0.8772

4.2 Structural Equation Model and

Hypothesis Testing

SEM test was performed to calculate the estimated

path coefficients, path significance and R

values.

Table 4 shows the SEM test results, including path

coefficients and their respective t-statistics. Figure 2

depicts path coefficients and variance, indicating

that all hypotheses were supported at p<0.01.

Hypothesis 1 (H1) was supported, indicating that

social influence has a significant positive influence

on satisfaction with the use of social media to

enhance IT field trip experiences. H2 was supported,

indicating that perceived usefulness has a significant

influence on the increase of user satisfaction with

the use of social media to enhance their IT field trip

experiences. H3 was supported, indicating that low

effort expectancy has a significant influence on the

increase of user satisfaction with the use of social

media to enrich their field trip experiences. All these

three constructs together explain approximately 32%

of variation in user satisfaction (R

=0.321). A closer

look at the explanative power of these three

constructs for the variation in user satisfaction. Low

effort expectancy has the highest influence on user

satisfaction, followed by perceived usefulness and

social influence. H4 was supported, indicating that

increasing user satisfaction with the use of social

media during and after IT field trip experiences has

positive influence on continuance intention. User

satisfaction can explain approximately 27% of

variation in continuance intention (R

=0.271).

Table 4: Structural Equation Modeling Test Results.

Hypothesized

Paths

Path Coefficients T-statistics

H1: SI  SAT 0.165 2.147

H2: PU  SAT 0.252 3.312

H3: EE  SAT 0.269 2.992

H4: SAT  CI 0.520 8.096

Figure 2: Path Analysis Results.

5 DISCUSSION

The statistic results show that the students seemed to

be satisfied with the use of social media to learn

about products before, during and after the IT field

trip. Besides, they tended to continue to use social

media as a means of learning about

products/services. As mentioned earlier, it is

important that we first understand what affects

students satisfaction with the use of social media to

enhance their field trip experience. This paper, thus,

shows an interesting step of how to encourage user

satisfaction and continuance intention on the use of

social media.

First, low effort expectancy appears to have the

highest effect on user satisfaction. Therefore, the

easier it is to use social media to search and learn

about IT products as well as to interact with

providers or those who share common interest in the

products, the more likely it is that the students will

be satisfied and continue to use social media as a

tool to enhance their field trip learning. In terms of

acceptance theory, the finding extends the UTAT

theory (Venkatensh et al., 2003) as the original work

only states that effort expectancy affects use but not

user satisfaction.

Second, usefulness of social media to enhance IT

field trip learning should be delineated. If students

perceive social media useful for their learning

purposes, they are likely to be satisfied with the use.

The effect of perceived usefulness on user

satisfaction has been proven in various context of IT

use (Mahmood, et al., 2000; Bhattacherjee, 2001),

and it is also held true in this context.

Third, social influence is proven to yield positive

effect on user satisfaction with the use of social

media to enhance IT field trip learning. Therefore,

perceived pressure/support received from peers as

well as teachers can help increase students’

satisfaction with the use of social media. This is

consistent with other studies (e.g. Park et al., 2009)

that find social influence positively affects user

satisfaction of social media, such as Facebook.

TheUseofSocialMediatoEnrichInformationSystemsFieldTripExperiences

Although this study does not show or measure an

impact of the use of social media to enhance field

trip study, it shows that students are satisfied with

the use and intend to use social media again for

future field trips. From the pedagogical perspective,

field trips provide an opportunity to learn and

socialize with the particular context (Squire and

Klopfer, 2007). Since social media allows users to

form groups, share common interest, exchange ideas

and thus create good environment for learning

(Dalsgaard, 2006; Ractham et al, 2012), this study is

relevant and useful as we learned how to encourage

the satisfaction with the use of social media to

enhance field trip studying.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This paper posits that field trip experiences, such as

a visit to an IT expo, is beneficial to students, and

social media is a useful virtual space where students

can learn and share information about their

fieldtrips. However, virtual space to learn could not

and should not replace a real field trip; rather, it can

be very useful for preparing before and revising after

a real field trip (Spicer and Stratford, 2001).

Therefore, in this research we have IS students tried

to use social media to enhance IT field trip

experiences. The research set to understand factors

that could help increase students’ satisfaction with

the use of social media to enhance IS fieldtrip and an

intention to continue to do so in future field trips.

In summary, the research shows that to help

increase user satisfaction with the use of social

media to enhance field trip study and an intention to

do so, course instructors should ensure that students

perceive the use of social media for enhancing field

trip study as effortless, useful, and well used and

accepted by their peers. This is consistent with

several studies that previously researched on

adoption and acceptance of IT (Bhattacherjee, 2001;

Venkatesh, et al., 2003; Park, et al., 2009).

Besides, the research shows that when we

created the social environment for the students to

learn, they were happy to use it and tended to

continue using it as a learning tool to enhance a field

trip. However, it is important to note that our field

trip learning design (the way to apply social media

into fieldtrip) was not proven its fitness or its

performance to aid learning. Also we did not

measure any learning outcome or learning

performance, but we show that students were

satisfied with the use of social media as a tool to aid

their field trip learning. Therefore, implication

should be carefully made, and future research may

conduct an experiment to examine how we should

incorporate the use of social media to better enhance

the field trip learning performance. In addition,

learning performance should be compared between

students who only attend an IT field trip and

students who both attend an IT field trip and use

social media to enhance their field trip study.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

If any, should be placed before the references

section without numbering.

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