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that learning is a social activity, and people learn better by interacting with one another. The
WhatsApp group would thus enable the sharing of ideas and critical reflection of ideas.
However, Gunawardena et al.(2001, p.42) cautions that “the decision to include an online
discussion group must be considered carefully, taking into account the characteristics of students,
the structure of the content, and the amount of dialogue and collaboration necessary for the
learning process” Collaboration is a key factor in mediating learning with discussion forums.
Keller’s (2010) motivation theory is highly considered in using discussion forums. She suggests
that instructors using discussion forums should pose challenging questions and problems to be
solved, provide relevant topics to increase motivation, and provide feedback to motivate and give
satisfaction in return. The tasks given by the researcher in this respect were the tutorials and
independent self-learning tasks (ISL) which were actually to remind the students to prepare earlier
before coming to class. One of the lecturers even used it to pose challenging questions for the
students to answer within a given time. Therefore discussion forums are building blocks to
internalize dialogical activity. They create an environment for the dialogue and arguments, which
are internalized for developing high order thinking skills.

Discussion on the Effectiveness of the Change Initiative

Four social themes have emerged from the interview data transcribed. The first theme is
fast, effective and reliable communication. The messages went to many students at once and were
responded with fast replies. During the interview, the male English lecturer responded “I can
contact my students very fast and I have proof to that, sometimes if I send message, only
reach one person, but using WhatsApp I can just include all of them under one group”. The
male monitor shared “… it acts as a medium between lecturer and students outside the course
room so if the lecturer want to inform us with anything, they can instead of sending messages
or calling us. They can use this WhatsApp thing to inform us.” The History lecturer said “Pada
keseluruhanya, ia amat berkesan dan cepat untuk semua pelajar memiliki telefon yang ada
khidmat WhatsApp”.The Head of the Language Department (he was also an academic lecturer)
even said “Messages can be transmitted quickly. Change of lecture time and place can be
notified easily. Recipient of messages also responds promptly… Yes, it is proven to be
effective basically for messages and communication…” The lecturers agreed that the
WhatsApp system is fast and the student concurred with them that it provides effective and reliable
communication.
The second theme is that it is convenient (useful and easy to use) to use. The female student
who was the subject coordinator commented “I find the WhatsApp group very useful as a
coordinator… I act as the connecter between the lecturer and the students. So it is easy for
me to inform about the changes of places or times even it happens at the last minutes so this
will tend to, has helped me in doing my job properly and it has helped to be useful for
example like we have to share the tutorial tasks. It is easier for me to make sure everybody
gets the copy and everybody can do the work”. The female coordinator shared that the
convenience of using WhatsApp aided her to carry out her duties properly. The male monitor also
agreed that it is convenient by saying “This method, this way of teaching using WhatsApp is
very useful and I really need this method to be continued next semester so that we can keep
using this…” Even the Head of the Language Department said he used it because: “It’s useful,
convenient and it’s free…” He was frank enough to admit that using WhatsApp was convenient
besides it being free. Both the students and the Head claimed that they used the service because it
is convenient.

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