The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ involvement of social networking sites (SNSs) as course-management-system (CMS) in face-to-face course, students’ motivation to course, and their relationships. The research question guided the study was: “Is there a relationship between students’ motivational profiles (self-efficacy, intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation and task value) and student involvement in course Facebook page (time spent, number/type/depth of the posts)?”.

The literature has focused on the usage differences in SNSs. In contrast, the involvement and usage in academic purposes and the correlation between students’ SNSs involvement, and students’ motivation in learning and teaching have not been studied. There is a need on possible academic uses of SNSs (Bosch, 2009). Furthermore, how the impact of students’ with different motivational profiles and involvement of SNSs has not been studied before. In this study, the researchers aimed to examine the relationship among students’ involvement of course Facebook page, and students’ motivation.

Given the focus of the study on examining whether SNSs has a place in teaching and learning, motivation theories, and Astin’s Involvement Theory provided theoretical bases for this study. Motivational theorists have focused on explaining students’ behaviors, activity choice, engagement and performance in the majority of educational researches (Meece, Anderman, & Anderman, 2006). This study uses motivational theories to explain how students with different motivation profiles behave in Facebook environment and what are their choices, and the relationship between students’ choices and their motivations. It would be interesting and essential to explore how students with different motivation profiles participate in SNSs, and to see if students’ involvement is different depending on their motivation level. Brookhart and Durkin (2003) emphasized the importance of student motivation and learning variables in the cognitive psychology literature since these variables may operate differently for each classroom assessment. Due to the importance of motivation in education, researchers focused on the development and use of new instructional interventions and innovative technological tools to deal with student’s motivation problems. Furthermore, Mazer, Murphy and Simond (2007) stated that using Facebook is perceived by students as an attempt to foster positive relationship with them. As a result, using Facebook as CMS may have positive effects on important learning outcomes by increasing the student motivation (Mazer, Murphy & Simond, 2007).

Understanding the factors that contribute academic success is essential to design more effective learning environments. One of the important factors that determine the academic success of learner is the level of involvement in academic activities. According to Astin’s Theory (1999), student’s engaging in Facebook can be considered as a form of involvement. In this research, Facebook was used as a medium for achieving the goal of maximizing both interaction and communication of F2F courses and the amount of time and effort spend on Facebook for course related activities were described and measured as a component of Facebook utilization by considering the Astin’s notion of involvement. Astin’s Student Involvement Theory serves as the bridge in connecting SNSs involvement and learning in F2F courses.

Astin, A. W. (1999). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Personnel (Originally published July 1984), Vol: 40, No: 5, pp. 518-529. Bosch, T. E. (2009) Using online social networking for teaching and learning: Facebook use at the University of Cape Town, Communicatio: South African Brookhart, S. M. and Durkin, D. T. (2003) Classroom Assessment, Student Motivation, and Achievement in High School Social Studies Classes', Applied Measurement in Education, 16: 1, pp:27-54. Carty R. (2007) An Investigation of the Use of Web 2.0 Education and the Development of a Resultant Personalised Learning Environment, Unpublished master’s thesis, School of Computing, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland. Hanrahan M. (1998). The Effect of Learning Environment Factors on Students’ Motivation and Learning. International Journal of Science Education, 20(6), pp. 737-753. Mazer J. P., Murphy, R. E. & Simonds, C. J.(2007) 'I'll See You On “Facebook”: The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate', Communication Education, 56: 1, pp:1 — 17 Meece J. L. Anderman E. M., & Anderman L. H. (2006) Classroom Goal Structure, Student Motivation and AcademicAchievement, Annu. Rev. Psychol. 57:487-503. Uskida E. (2005) The Role of Students’ Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning in Online Language CoursesThe Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO) Journal, 23 (1), pp. 49-78.