Persuasive social features that promote knowledge sharing among tertiary students on social networking sites: An empirical study

Abstract

Persuasive system features have been widely adopted to encourage attitude and behaviour change. Recently, most social networking sites (SNS) adopt some form of persuasive system features that leverage social influence to deliberately induce prescribed behaviours in their users. However, studies on how these features can be used to promote knowledge sharing are inadequate; particularly, regarding how SNS that have been developed solely for academic purposes can adopt these features to promote knowledge sharing. To address this knowledge gap, this study integrates constructs from the social capital theory and persuasive systems design model to investigate the impact of persuasive social features on knowledge sharing among students of tertiary institutions on academic social networking sites. Data are quantitatively gathered from 218 respondents from tertiary institutions and statistically analyzed. The results suggest that perceived dialogue support and perceived social support have strong influences on knowledge sharing behaviour.

Scientific Mapping of Social Media in Education: A Decade of Exponential Growth

“…With the emergence of information and communication technology (ICT), the landscape of education has undergone significant transformations in the past few decades. One of these transformations is the use of social media which allows the users to generate and share content, collaborate, and interact for a more interactive web experience (Greenhow & Lewin, 2016; Hew & Cheung, 2013; Wiafe et al., 2020). This technology has, indeed, shaped our society and has become an integral part of our personal and professional lives.…”

The Use of Academic Social Networking Sites in Scholarly Communication: Scoping Review

“…In recent years, the use of persuasive system features has become prevalent in ASNs. It brings "induce prescribed behaviors" such as information sharing (Wiafe et al, 2020). However, ASN companies may take into account that there are already some concerns regarding the increased use of ASNs in academia which may disorient academics from their primary duties and lead to the gamification of research activities (Sugimoto et al, 2017).…”

“…A recent study suggests that developers are incorporating robust features that connect users with common understanding and values in order to bring about the desired behavioral changes (Wiafe, Koranteng, Owusu, Ekpezu, & Gyamfi, 2020). Such persuasive system features are regarded as one of the common feature innovations adopted in the platforms to bring a change in attitude and behavior.…”

“…Hence, ASNs are adopting some type of persuasive system features that exploit the social impact to purposely induce prescribed behaviors on their users. Wiafe (2020) used the theory of social capital and the model of persuasive systems design to investigate these influences of the persuasive system on academic social networking sites for knowledge sharing among students of tertiary institutions. The findings indicated that the systems feature drive the perceived support for discussion and social support, which have significant effects on the conduct of information sharing.…”

“…Some of these main features include Questions and Answers, Searching and Browsing facility, Site Navigation and Session Filters, Output Features, Privacy Settings and Text Display, Social Tagging System, and Recommendation Systems. Furthermore, it implements a persuasive system to induce a behavior change on the users (Wiafe et al, 2020). However, more studies are needed to identify how these changes are shaping the user's characteristics in the platform.…”