TikTok as a Source of English Language Content – Perceived Impacts on Students’ Competence: Views from Indonesia

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the students' perceptions of the impacts of English content shared via TikTok on their English competence and examine the reasons for their perceptions. Two hundred and seven English students consisting of 117 females and 90 males in East Java, Indonesia with prior high experience of watching English content shared via TikTok participated in the study. The participants included 52 high school students, 97 university English students, and 58 English course students with diverse backgrounds. A wide range of perspectives was obtained from the research instrument, namely a four-point Likert-scale questionnaire. This was used to elicit quantitative data on students' perceived impacts of English content shared via TikTok on their English competence as well as the underlying reasons for their perceptions. The questionnaire consisted of 20 statements and was developed from four subscales of the perception construct. Quantitative data were analyzed through frequency and percentage, while qualitative data were analyzed based on themes. The findings revealed that students have positively perceived impacts of English content shared via TikTok on their English competence. This positive perception ranged from 60.1% to 94.7%, implying that research participants responded positively to all questionnaire items. This suggests that English content shared via TikTok contributes to students' English competence. In addition, four themes emerged in the qualitative analysis, namely attractiveness, effectiveness, relevance, and the motivation aspect. The data indicated that students have positive reasons for their perceptions. Therefore, the results of both the qualitative and quantitative data analysis suggest that English content shared via TikTok is beneficial for improving students’ English competence.