The Impact of TikTok on Academic Motivation among University Students in Malaysia

TikTok has cemented itself as one of the most frequently used social media platforms in Malaysia. The majority of its users are predominantly university students and young adults. As such, many aspects of these students’ lives including their academic motivation can be impacted by TikTok. Nevertheless, past studies on this topic have reported mixed findings and there is a lack of studies conducted on this subject in Malaysia. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of TikTok on academic motivation among university students in Malaysia. The instruments used to collect data were the Social Media Engagement Scale for Adolescents (SMES-A) and the Brief Regulation of Motivation Scale (BRoMS). A total of 89 undergraduate students in Malaysia who are TikTok users were recruited as participants for this study. The data was analysed using a linear regression. The results of the analysis showed that there was no significant influence of TikTok on academic motivation. Certain personality traits and other internal factors such as intrinsic motivation could have contributed to the findings of this study. Although this study has helped in filling up the research gaps, there were several limitations that were identified mainly the small sample size and the other factors that could influence the findings which were not looked into. This study recommends that future studies research other factors such as personality traits and intrinsic motivation as well as employ mixed methodology with a larger sample size.