The 12 th International Scientific Conference eLearning and Software for Education Bucharest, April 21-22, 2016 10.12753/2066-026X-16-170 USEFULNESS OF FACEBOOK FOR STUDENTS: ANALYSIS OF UNIVERSITY PROFILE DIFFERENCES FROM A MULTIDIMENSIONAL PERSPECTIVE Costin PRIBEANU National Institute for R&D in Informatics - ICI Bucharest, BlvG 0DUHúDO $YHUHVFX 1R -10, 011455 Bucharest, Romania pribeanu@ici.ro Vincentas LAMANAUSKAS University of Siauliai, P. Vishinskio Str. 25, Siauliai, Lithuania v.lamanauskas@esf.su.lt Abstract: The change of paradigm from learner-centered to social learning requires considering various activities such as active participation, information and content sharing, collaboration, and debate. The XVH RI VRFLDO QHWZRUNLQJ ZHEVLWHV WDNHV D ORW RI WLPH IURP WKH VWXGHQWVｶ XQLYHUVLW\ OLIH WKXV FKDOOHQJ ing the educators to look for modalities to identify and exploit their educational potential. The increasing popularity of Facebook among university students is raising several research questions regarding its usefulness for education. Therefore, a systematic study on Facebook use by university students has been started in 2014 in the framework of cooperation between researchers from ICI Bucharest (Romania) and Siauliai University (Lithuania). The aim of this research is twofold: (a) to measure the usefulness of Facebook for university students along three dimensions: social usefulness, information usefulness and collaboration usefulness, and (b) to analyze group differences from a multidimensional perspective. A multidimensional model for the perceived usefulness has been conceptualized and empirically validated on two samples using structural equation modelling. A Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA) provides evidence for configural and metric invariance of the evaluation instrument, thus enabling comparison at construct level. The university profile comparison shows mean differences as regards the global factor and two of its dimensions: social usefulness and information usefulness. The results of this work have several implications for researchers and practitioners. First, it contributes to a better understanding of the educational potential of Facebook. Second, it contributes to a reliable evaluation instrument that performs well across the two groups. Third, the multidimensional perspective enables analyzes on two levels (global factor and each dimension). Keywords: Social learning; social networking websites; Facebook; university students; analysis of invariance; group differences; structural equation modelling. I. INTRODUCTION The proliferation of social networking websites is leading to a change of paradigm from learner- centered to social learning which requires considering various activities such as active participation, information and content sharing, collaboration, and debate [4]. The use of social networking websites WDNHV D ORW RI WLPH IURP WKH VWXGHQWVｶ XQLYHUVLW\ OLIH WKXV FKDOOHQJLQJ WKH HGXFDWRUV WR ORRN IRU PRGDOLWLHV to identify and exploit their educational potential [2, 12, 18]. The increasing popularity of Facebook among university students is raising several research questions regarding its usefulness for education [9, 15, 20]. Nowadays, the study process at university is quantitatively and qualitatively different. In the current educational practice, mixed teaching/learning forms are applied, for the proper realization of ZKLFK OHFWXUHUｶV IHDWXUHV DQG DELOLWLHV DUH YHU\ DFWXDO EHFDXVH DORQJVLGH ZLWK WUDGLWLRQDO QHFHVVDU\ features characteristic to the lecturers, information technologies are involved in the process, 557