Factors Enabling Social Media: Exploring Knowledge Sharing amid student community for better academic performance


 This paper aims to probe how the determinant influences by accessing of social media to share knowledge among the student which enhances their academic performance. The research particularly identifies in this context, the role of various components associated to knowledge sharing, and use of social media among the student’s community. Methodology – This study has adopted a Prevalence study and the data was analysed with structural equation modelling. Findings – Results approximated to adopt social media tools, which depends upon various associated components. Knowledge sharing attitudes among the student community has helped them more to share their knowledge. However, knowledge sharing approach was determined by the usefulness of knowledge. This was insusceptible from the attempt involved to improvise their academic performance. Research limitations/implications – Respondents of the survey, were done with the students from educational institution of India, cluster random sampling was used for the research. This limits the inferences made from the findings. Practicable implications – This study probes useful perceptiveness on executing social media based knowledge management by the student community. Particularly, it highlights the need to draw attention on underpinning factors, which influences knowledge sharing through social media. Originality – The study which disseminates decisive factors related to knowledge sharing with various tools of social media, thereby prompts and tests a more realistic model which may pave way for knowledge management by student community for academic performance.


Introduction
Learning and Creation happens only when the personal knowledge of the individuals are interchanged (Kogut and Zander, 1992;Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Thus knowledge sharing and the knowledge generation can happen only if there is a systematic approach.
Leveraging of Knowledge sharing involves both personal and combined knowledge, which articulates personal knowledge into collective knowledge. Social media eases this adoption (Razmerita et al. 2014 Formal and Informal learning classi es, knowledge sharing and social media as tool for enhancing the performance of students. Formal learning happened in a classroom, which helped the teacher and the students to have their interactions using a black board/ computer/ projectors. Informal learning is after formal learning, for enrichment of their knowledge; there may happen social interaction with people or through technology.
In uence of media like print media, news channels and other entertainment channels helps the students to develop new interests, new options, on what they had learnt through formal education and helps them correlate.
During 2000's, the Internet was a breakthrough in technology, after earlier communication methods. It was innovative when compared to the earlier ones, and bridged distances. In the same way today social media tools helped interactions easier for geographically distributed.
Then internet and now google is the key source of information. During the last decade, there are evident changes in the learning mechanism both in formal and informal learning and it was made tranquil with social media. Adoption of social media enhanced access to various resources. Social media also offers novel possibilities to expand and diversify the learning opportunities.
Over past years, social media applications are capable of and widely prized by knowledge workers for their enhanced knowledge collaboration and sharing potentiality (Levy, 2009).
Social media evolution has tremendous growth in all areas than traditional information technology adoption has been embraced from the literature (Parameswaran and Whinston, 2007).
Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivational beliefs are the factors, which impacts on the sharing and seeking of knowledge (Wasko and Faraj, 2000).
Access to knowledge and information through varied sources like public and private helps in the creation, distribution and/or application of knowledge (Davenport, 2011).
Social interactions through social media tools provides channel for information exchange among the cohort, it increased the access of peer reviews, through various resources and information ow increased drastically. This helped Institutions to create a competitive environment and stimulated greater information seeking and sharing among the Faculty and Student fraternity.
Knowledge ow includes creation, transfer and integration. Collaboration and networking provides new opportunities for creation and sharing which leads to improved academic performance through social media.
We mainly address on convergence of knowledge sharing, academic performance and social media in uencing via various factors, and explored the integrated framework combined together as knowledge management.

Social Media
It can be de ned as follows: Social media tool facilitates, seeking and sharing of information in a quicker way to increase the growth of knowledge.
Social media allows evolution of information in a more e cient way and at an increasing speed.
It is assessed that knowledge is currently in the increasing pace and technology eases the gap and facilitates to gain knowledge and proliferate ideas.
Social media acts as a bridge between human and technology.
In this section, we dwell on how Social Media has an implication on knowledge management. Then we expound the adopted theoretical framework in the study and outline the research hypothesis and model and also explained the ndings and the research method. We outline the implications of the study and the ndings, for theory and practice. We conclude the key observations which are sought from the insights and expound the directions for future research.
Social media: Knowledge sharing and seeking perspective Social media has changed drastically on how users contribute their sharing experiences with various individuals (Chuang and Chang, 2011).
When compared to traditional media, social media contained of more distinct activities for knowledge sharing (Panahi et al., 2016b).
People seek knowledge, for exhibiting bene t. Intelligent is not within oneself it can be attained through formal and informal communications which helps in the process of attaining insights and expertise.  Kim and Benbasat, 2012). Social media applications have all endowed knowledge sharing activities of individuals and they can accomplish a variety of access for services, which are available. Knowledge seekers can connect external and internal sources, which lie beyond the geographical boundaries (Ellison et al., 2015, Herrick, 2016. Social media helps to seek bene cial knowledge with people of similar interests (Yu et al., 2010, Panahi et al., 2016b.

Social Media and perspectives of knowledge management
Social Media broadly refers to that "the end users interact with each other to generate and share information over Web" (Levy, 2009) Today's scenario, in an emergence, the willingness to share and seek knowledge, which was made available by others, is entailed by the student community using social media. The study provides insights to develop hypothesis for potential quantitative research shows that for both knowledge sharing and seeking, social media, helps to encounter new knowledge, socializing, story-telling, and involves other related activities (Panahi et al., 2016). Hence, Social Media adoption necessitates a link for knowledge seeking and sharing attitudes. However, the role of knowledge sharing and seeking in an assimilated model; the two streams has been evolved separately. Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) explained both the behavioural attitudes through adoption of IT. However, Jennings et al. (2012) in the "extended attitude-behavior framework", related factors may determine the speci c behaviour. The newness of this research is that it extends to social media adoption for knowledge attributes in the integrated model than knowledge management and IT adoption.

Theoretical Framing
To examine IT adoption, theoretical frameworks like Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) identi ed signi cant thing as "diffusion of innovation".
TRA explains the links between attitude-behaviour framework and IT adoption. There are several scholars entreated TRA and its extensions to explain the association between attitude and behavior and allowed researchers to explain IT adoption models (Al-Debei et al., 2013).

Theory of Reasoned Action, Technology Acceptance Model and Theory of Planned Behavior
TRA also suggested the strength of behavioral intention of a person's behaviour(BI) to perform is determined by the particular behaviour (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Attitude is determined by the person's belief towards performance of the behavior. Ajzen (1985) (i.e.), beliefs, attitude, differ extremely from context to context and from behavior to behavior.

Information Technology Adoption And Its Role On Role Of Attitude
Intended behaviour was affected simultaneously and has been highlighted by various scholars through related attitudes by Jennings et al. (2012), towards attitude-behavior. and was claimed that "closely related and at times opposing attitudes" can be correspondingly important predictors of behavior.

Signi cance Of The Study
Students access more of social media tools, as they are more conversant with several technical aspects and its settings. In today's competitive environment, to excel and achieve it is a fact that the knowledge does not exist in the mind of individuals, it is vast, and, needs interactions and listening among to lectures and discourses etc., and those interactions need active participation. Social media tools bridged the gap and are preferred by the students-community more than face-to-face situations. (Kabila, 2010). Social media tools enabled by various in uencing factors which helped the student community to achieve their desired learning outcomes and to excel in their career prospects and performance through sharing. Tomai, Rosa, Mebane,) says that "Students who participate in social media as part of a class feel more connected to their peers than those students who do not participate in social media". It helped the student community to group among their peers, it also helped them to have a link with other existing peer groups for information seeking and sharing (Jackson, 2011;Mazman & Usluel, 2010). In addition, it bridges the diversity, and paves way to interact with each other and share their information in a better manner.

Some Of Background Studies And Research Contributions On Social Media And Its Impact On Performance Among Student Community
"Social media usage within the academic setting not only increases student's performance in exams, but also facilitates peer feedback on assignment, projects, participation in projects/ competitions, because of the ability for students to openly communicate with each other and also help them develop strong relationships among peers" (Kuh, 1993 At times, it also "Distracted the students from completing their coursework and di culties in balancing online activities and academic commitments" (Hurt, et.al, 2012).
Nevertheless, though, there are several good aspects of social media can also be used for abuse purposes. These may be set right by establishing necessary guidelines to take care of the behaviour and attitude of the student community. Cyber-plagiarism, cyber bullying, (Chen & Bryer, 2012; Jackson, 2011; Smailes & Gannon-Leary, 2011) stated "The Institutions for establishing standards has to re-inforce these things which may be bene cial among the student community for sharing knowledge". Do social media really help the students signi cantly and bene t them in their learning processes. The focus of the paper to nd how well, social media helps the student in improving their performance and, overall development with various attributes. (Nystrom, & Cohen, 2004; Rilling, Sanfey, Aronson) says "When there is a face-to-face communication human partners require more emotional involvement, and thus more cognitive effort, than interacting with a computer".
(Junco, Helbergert, & Loken, 2011; Arnold & Paulus, 2010;) says that "Social media tools which include a variety, of web-based tools and services, they are designed to promote community development in collaboration for seeking and sharing of information". Social media tools facilitate interaction and helped the student community in understanding the conditions and to con ne spillover of knowledge onto the rest of the community.
"Given that higher levels of interaction are necessary to accomplish highly interdependent tasks, information seeking and sharing among team members should be even greater where high interdependency exists among members". (LengnickHall & Lengnick-Hall, 2003) stated, "Reciprocity creates a strong incentive for the student community to work in group and to achieve common goals and to build a strong cohesive relationship".
From the earlier studies, it is observed that students who utilised social media for learning, associate and overall development, which helped them to increase their achievement and learning outcomes. Therefore, students who are engaged in social media activities, increased connections and created communities for better learning, which helped them to improve in their performance.
In this section, we developed a model that enhanced the performance and overall prospects by integrating attitudes towards knowledge sharing and their antecedents through social media tools. The model excluded the constructs "subjective norm" and presents the research model.

Adoption Of It In The Role Of Attitude
Intended behaviour has been affected simultaneously with related attitudes has been highlighted in several studies Jennings et al. (2012), it has been claimed that "closely related and at times opposing attitudes" are important predictors. In their study, "they found that in a non-western social context, a son's marriage behavior was in uenced by two closely related speci c attitudes -attitude about childbearing and attitude about taking care of aging parents". This study reveals that adoption of Social Media by Student community could be determined by both knowledge sharing and seeking attitudes of their antecedents.
Hence, we hypothesize that: H5. Student community' perceived environment has a positive in uence on knowledge sharing attitude.
H6. Student community' perceived attitude in the collective users of Social Media applications will has positive in uence on knowledge sharing attribute.
During interaction knowledge sharing is appropriate and the feedback is very critical. If the responses are in the way it has been anticipated, we may say that behaviour and the thought ow are at a balance and the role play may be improved as the exchange continues further (Kinch 1973, pp. 55, 77) as it is referred in role theory, the cornerstone of the representative perception on the creation of self-concept(Gecas 1982; Kinch 1963). This may contributes to self-worth (Gecas 1971), which is affected more with pro ciency (Covington and Beery 1976) and con ned with active performance (Bandura 1978). Therefore, if students are able to get feedback the shared knowledge are more likely to contribute to the work further and help them improve their performance which in turn may help them to increase their self-worth accordingly. This will render favorable attitudes towards knowledge sharing. This cognition on self-worth and knowledge-sharing behavior leads to hypothesis H5. H8. Do knowledge sharing attitude has a positive in uence on the career prospects by students.

Social Media And Various Other Factors In uencing Enhanced Performance
Literatures speak about, how well students, uses social media tools for information sharing and seeking and increasingly rely on the ability of these tools to improve their performance in the academic area.
Technology alone may not contribute to learning, it can provide an environment where students can share and seek their ideas among other students and peers for knowledge gain. This study mainly addresses on how knowledge sharing, academic performance and social media tools converge and in uenced by various factors, paved ways to improve academic area and career prospects.

Objective
The objective is as stated below: 1. To examine how well social media tools enhances performance and prospects in student's career.
1. The in uence of various factors towards sharing and seeking of information through social media tools.
1. To check and measure whether the model is t.

Methodology And Analysis
The research has conducted through cross-sectional survey to test the model from a National Level Institute in India.

DATA COLLECTION
For data collection, an instrument has been adopted and was collected using web questionnaire from the students of National Institute of Technology. A ve Point scale varying from 1 to 5 with 5 and 1 indicating strongly agree to strongly disagree. Interactions with cohort group also was taken into considerations for the study media tools was adopted and used by the student community in improving their performance.

DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected for the study was analyzed with SPSS software and with (AMOS) 16. Statistical structures used to interpret the survey data and Focus study discussed in the conclusion and limitations.
FOR TABULATED RESULTS EXPLANATIONS ARE GIVEN WHEREVER REQUIRED Table 1, 2 and 3 provides with the pro le of the participants in the study. Table 1 speci es the age group of the participants between 18-24 are accessing social media tools than others. Table 2 depicts number of male respondents than female respondents access to social media tools. Table 3 provides with the details that under graduate students accessed more than others.      Collaborative documents like Google docs are used to share the knowledge by students has been depicted in Table 6. Table 7 speci es the items in the study taken for measuring the internal consistency and correlation of the scales in arriving at Cronbach's coe ency.

Practical implications
The ndings offer important insights in this study. Our study shows that students implementing Social Media-based knowledge management must see that Institutions also should have intention towards knowledge sharing attitude. Moreover, the study reveal that, knowledge sharing is important and help the students who strive for a balance between various factors which motivates knowledge sharing.
Institutions remain with the trust that rather than for extrinsic rewards students share their knowledge for pleasure and in helping others. Hence, Institutions should implement systems that should strengthen selfe cacy and inclination to share their knowledge, (i.e), to encourage users as well as their own contributions and to identify and highlight contributions of other members. The study demands for focus on the Institutions to cultivate the culture of sharing and recognition.
Furthermore, the probes of the study reveals usefulness of the knowledge and it is the most important determinant on the knowledge-sharing attitude. This implies that the institutions should explain how this knowledge repository can be used and to enhance the authenticity of the contents available on the Social Media which can be monitored by a team of the members in the respected institutions.

Conclusions And Future Research
We draw upon the as the hypothetical lens to assimilate the knowledge-sharing attitude and their backgrounds in the single model. The results emphasise that Social Media adoption is much required. Further, to this and from the results of this empirical study, we highlight the signi cance of explicit antecedents of knowledge sharing.
The study probes varied directions to further research. The results are from a sample of 70 respondents.
Though the number may be good enough to investigate at this stage and the sample size presumes, that further studies with a much larger sample may enhance the generalizability of the results. Second, the study used convenience sampling design as its advantages to a more e cient sampling method needed for empirical investigation. More to this, other sampling methods could be used to ensure varied participation to eliminate the bias of the researchers' ndings. Third, as this study was conducted at the national level Institute, while other Institutions may be considered as distinctive Student community and hence the study cannot be generalized to all the Student community. The study with Student community from other contexts considering of all types of institutions rather a national level institute could add to robustness of the ndings. Fourth, whereas examining the projected relations in the context of other knowledge worker, future studies may also look on how profession speci c factors of Student community which in uence their use of Social Media applications for sharing of the knowledge. For investigating the use of Social Media at institutional level, researchers should put an effort in exploring the role of the constructs relating to the institutions, like adoptions. However, our study conceptualizes by knowledge sharing through social media platform, though there is an improvisation in student's career prospects and academic performance, this may be assessed furthermore with their learning effectiveness and how it helps in their placement in higher educational institutions.

Declarations
Consent statement: The questionnaire was collected through the web and forwarded to the computer team of the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli & Indian Institute of Management Tiruchirappalli for authenticity of the information; participants gave their consent by lling out the questionnaire. The Dean of Academics/PGPM Chairperson approved the study-They had permitted us to collect the information from their students -authenticity here is the questions relevant to the student community and is it noteworthy sending it to their students. Competing interests statement: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figure 1
Research model and hypotheses Social Media and in uencing factors in enhanced performance