XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE Student s Perception on Usage of Online Social Network and Difficulties in Learning Social Science Research Fatimah Sarah Yaacob, Norasykin Mohd Zaid, Jamalludin Harun Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM, Johor, Malaysia sarah2015utm@gmail.com, norasykin@utm.my, p-jamal@utm.my AbstractThis paper aims to investigate the students perception on medium of communication and delivery of information used in teaching and learning, and to investigate the level of difficulty based on social science research syllabus. Based on quantitative research design, we conducted a survey study to ten postgraduate students (purposive sampling) and applied interviews to support quantitative data collected. All participants have enrolled in research methodology course for one semester. The sharing of information and communication through online platform? can occur using several mediums such as e-Learning, Facebook, WhatApps, E-mail, Mobile Apps, YouTube and Blog. Findings showed that the most difficult topics in quantitative research syllabus are Data Analysis and Interpretation, Research Designs 1: Ethnographic, Historical, Developmental, Research Designs 2: Narrative & Action Research as the most difficult topics in qualitative research syllabus. Meanwhile, students have selected Data Analysis as the most difficult topic in mixed- method research. This study suggests exploring five aspects of student's interactions for future research in development of mobile learning environment among social science postgraduate students. Keywordsstudents' difficulty, social science, students' perceptions I. INTRODUCTION In Malaysia, the higher education learning process has shifted from teacher-centered approach to a student-centered learning which is in line with the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education) [1]. Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education) consists of six main attributes that are balanced by both aspects, namely Ilmu (including knowledge and skills) and Akhlak (including ethics and morality) at two level of education systems which are preschool to post-secondary system and higher education system. The MEB (HE) emphasizes six main attributes: 1) ethics and spirituality, 2) leadership skills, 3) national identity, 4) language proficiency, 5) thinking skills, and 6) knowledge. Higher education student, will be the center of learning to actively participate with people or environment or learning materials [2] by asking questions, discussion, presenting their report in class. Currently, Malaysia Higher Education policy is being transformed with the fast changing technology as mentioned by Dr Noorul Ainur, Towards achieving a developed nation status, higher education is one of the most important sectors to propel Malaysias talent development in spearheading Malaysias socio-economic growth in line with the 11 th Malaysia Plan as well as Malaysia Higher Education Blueprint (2015-2025) (The Star Online, 2018) However, students also faced problems to interact with other students or teachers. As argued by [3], without allowing interaction between students and teachers in chemistry lab work, it will decrease students self-confident. Other study in Pakistan reported that novice researchers were unable to communicate with their supervisors for guidance and proper assistance throughout their research project due to unavailability of supervisors [4]. This situation happens at the early stage of their research; their supervisors are unreachable or disappear. As time goes by, novice researcher continues to complete a whole research project, but at the end his/her work is rejected because it did not achieve the supervisors standard quality [4]. Therefore, without proper communication and insufficient discussion setting among students and teacher, it will lead to students difficulties to solve problem in time and low self-confidence [3]. Hence, neglecting interactions among students, teachers and learning materials, might affect the progression of learning activities. Previous study also reported that novice researchers in Pakistan have difficulties in the aspect of student-content interaction, where they were unable to access information or related literatures, and journal articles are not available for review; they have to spend plenty of times in searching for related references such as books, reports and newspaper from library because some of the references collections are lost and unsystematic library management [4]. During learning process, students will be given assignments for them to solve together with peers or smalls group [5] and then it has to be submitted on time. However, the process and method of manual submission are ineffective and time consuming because some student have misplaced their assignments [6]. Furthermore, some of the hard copies are mostly in the form of paper or printed material that students have sent might easily tear up. Besides that, some of the texts in printed documents cannot be read or see clearly Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITY TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA. Downloaded on March 08,2023 at 08:57:47 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.