Students' Interaction and Learning about American Culture on Facebook

• Main Authors: CHAN, YI-JUNG, 詹宜蓉
• Other Authors: Salazar, Eva Cadiao
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/8482j3

碩士 === 銘傳大學 === 應用英語學系碩士班 === 106 === This study examined whether students perceived the usage and interaction on Facebook can increase their cultural awareness regarding American culture. Previous studies conducted by Ferguson and Bornstein (2015) have shown that Jamaican adolescents can raise their European American cultural orientation through public media, such as the North American media and transnational communication. Nevertheless, despite the prevalence of social platform, i.e., Facebook, there is a scarcity of research on the use of the media enhancing the cultural awareness of Taiwanese students. The research questions asked in this study were: (1) Do students perceive Facebook usage and interactions as a way of enhancing their cultural awareness about American culture? (2) Is there a difference in students’ perception based on their academic field of study? A Likert-scale based questionnaire with 15 items (piloted with Cronbach α=.879), adapted from Ferguson, Bornstein and Pottinger (2012)’s Acculturation Rating Scale for Jamaican Americans (ARSJA) was administered to N=423 undergraduates in two university academic departments (the Department of Applied English [D.A.E.] and the Department of Information and Information Telecommunication Engineering [D.I.T.E.]). Results showed that freshmen students in both Departments (p=1.000 >.05) as well as sophomores in the D.A.E. and the D.I.T.E. (p=0.26 >.05) believe that they can enhance their cultural awareness concerning American Culture when interacting with online users on Facebook. To conclude, even though there are some issues of utilizing Facebook inappropriately, most respondents agreed that this online platform can help them to enhance their foreign cultural awareness.