| Summary: | 碩士 === 美和科技大學 === 經營管理研究所 === 101 === Due to the advancement of network science and technology over the past decade, the demand of retrieving quick and up-to-date knowledge from all over the world has been immensely increasing. The adoptions of e-learning platforms and knowledge sharing platforms have therefore become essential in all fields of education nowadays. Foreign language learning is no exception of this as these platforms were also applied as tools for teaching and learning.
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether using knowledge sharing platforms to study Mandarin was beneficial for business major international students. The detailed objectives were (1) to examine what are the factors students may encounter that affect their language learning. (2) to investigate whether using the knowledge sharing platforms to learn a foreign language will affect students’ learning outcome. (3) to find out whether using the knowledge sharing platforms as tools to learn a foreign language is actually beneficial.
The research was conducted based on a teaching experiment, assisted by questionnaire data gathered from a class of business major international students from Industrial University of Hochiminh City (IUH) who studied in Meiho University in Taiwan during the spring semester 2013. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used for analyzing the collected data by a combination of statistical procedures including independent sample t-test, paired t-test, the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and the analysis of correlation.
The major findings were: (1) there are two main caterogies of factors that influence successful foreign language learning. The general factors (Beliefs and Experiences, Social Context, Motivation and Effort) and the online factors (Language Barrier, Technical Quality, Teaching Style); (2) using knowledge sharing platforms to learn a foreign language affected the students’ learning outcome significantly, but had no significant difference on the outcome compared to learning by traditional in-class method; (3) using knowledge sharing platforms as tools to learn a foreign language is actually beneficial as it has many advantages such as convenience and comfort for the learners.
Suggestions on the effective adoption of knowledge sharing platforms for related officials, universities and language schools, lecturers and students were provided in the suggestions section.
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