ABSTRACT

The blog usages in education are to assist students communicate online with teachers
or peers. Students can use blogs as a medium for learning especially in how to find or share
information with other users and their own different blogs. The purpose of this study was to
investigate the frequencies of blog usage among the students of the Faculty of Education. In
addition, this study also intends to investigate the factors of blog usage from three aspects,
namely technology development, social influence and information sharing. The study also
reviewed the problems faced by students when they use blogs. Sets of questionnaires were
distributed to 70 students pursuing the Master of Education (Educational Technology),
Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai. Student background data such
as gender, education status, employment status and the status of the student blog has been
collected. There are three factors that investigated the use of blog technology development,
social influence and information sharing. A pilot study conducted prior to the survey gave a
Cronbach Alpha 0.8204. The findings showed that the mean of each part of the test is high,
higher than 3.67 except for the problem in the use of blogs recorded mean value of less than
3.00. There was no significant difference between the frequencies of blog usages by gender.
In addition, there is no significant difference between the frequencies of blog usages to the
status of student learning. The findings of the interviews showed that students prefer to use
the blog due to technological factors, social influence and information sharing. In general, this
study shows that students need to use a blog in learning activities that generate the learning
environment more effective and efficient.