The use of TikTok in higher education as a motivating source for students

: This article presents a study conducted at the University of Málaga with the participation of second-year students from the Degree in English Studies. It focuses on a TikTok project that the participants had to edit for the British History class in the academic year 2020/2021. The students’ reception of said project as an innovative learning tool, both as applied to English as a second language and to the content of the courses, was analysed and measured using a questionnaire that was elaborated ad hoc and properly validated. Our results indicate great success and acceptance of the activity on the part of the students, who consider that this innovative approach to learning being highly integrated with new technologies fosters the comprehension and active learning of the subject, thus enhancing comprehension in a stimulating and motivating way.


INTRodUCTIoN
CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is an approach that was born in Europe in the 1990s, but which had its antecedents in the Canadian early French immersion experiments carried out in the 1960s (Pinner, 2013;Wesche, 2002).CLIL is defined by Coyle et al. (2010) as a "dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language" (p. 1).Among its main objectives, CLIL tries (i) to prepare students for life in an increasingly international society, (ii) to instill in them the respect towards other cultures and languages, and (iii) to motivate learners to learn languages through the presentation of real practical linguistic objectives and purposes (Cendoya et al., 2008).
In the last few years, this approach has experienced a dramatic boost in Europe as a result of the European Council's recommendation that CLIL should be adopted in the entire European Union (Muñoz & Navés, 2009).More specifically, Coyle (2010) points to Spain as one of the most prominent European leaders in CLIL in terms of research and practice, with strategic plans for its development being carried out in autonomous communities such as Andalusia (Junta de Andalucía, 2017).
Although the majority of the studies carried out on CLIL revolve around its use in primary and secondary education, it can also be used in tertiary education and we must, in fact, distinguish between school CLIL and university CLIL, for the curricula included in the former is much more diverse than that included in the latter (Zarichna et al., 2020).But at the university level we find other types of content-language approaches that must not be confused with the approach studied in this work: (i) ESP courses, used to train students to communicate using specific terminology belonging to their professional fields; and (ii) EMI courses, in which English is used as the medium of instruction in countries where the population's first language is other than English (Dearden, 2015).CLIL comes into play at the university level as what Zarichna et al. (2020) call "a soft CLIL" whose implementation must be done in correlation between degree and ESP courses.According to Bhatia (2004) and Wright (2004), it functions as a form of assimilating university students into the language in which their curriculum is embedded or assessed.As some of its benefits in tertiary education, Aguilar and Rodríguez (2012) mention the improvement of foreign language learning, multicultural competence, and a positive mindset towards the process of learning other languages.Furthermore, CLIL students show, in some aspects, better performance than those who stay abroad (Pérez-Vidal, 2011), and improvements in terms of listening, oral, and organisational skills (Navés & Victori, 2010;Coyle, 2010).CLIL university students also feel more motivated: in a study carried out by Feixas et al. (2009), they expressed their consideration that they had further developed their language competence.Dafouz et al. (2007) show that its implementation in university lectures leads to a more democratic atmosphere among teachers and students, as well as the increase of participation.
CLIL is highly concerned with motivation: as it focuses on HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills), it is more motivating than traditional approaches (Lasagabaster, 2011;Pinner, 2013).Motivation is defined by Dörnyei (2001) as the learners' "effort, desire, and attitude towards learning" (p.68), but it is not equal to everyone: Gardner (1985) distinguishes between "integrative" and "instrumental" orientations, and while the former concentrates on the learners' ambition to integrate themselves within the speech community of the L2, the latter presents as its driving force the usefulness of learning the L2 as a form to capitalise on it.Deci and Ryan (1985) also put forward the existence of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, while Heckhausen (1991) distinguishes between endeavouring success and trying to avoid failure.For his part, Dörnyei (2001) goes beyond attempting to categorise motivation according to its purpose and argues that it changes across three different stages: choice (choosing to learn a language), execution (effectively putting the effort into a learning a language), and retrospection (evaluating the experience itself and its results).
But motivation is not the only key factor in the process of learning a new language, as emotional engagement, defined by Kuh (2009) as "the time and effort students devote to activities that are empirically linked to desired outcomes of college and what institutions do to induce students to participate in these activities" (p.683), has also been linked to positive results in the classroom (Bulger et al., 2008).Engagement determines effective academic experiences, as the emotional interaction of the learner with the contents being taught is essential in the process of making the instruction not only successful but also meaningful.In other words, the more engaged students feel with their courses and the contents included, the more successful the process of learning will be.
Students who feel emotionally engaged to the process of learning a new language are able to understand the information being provided faster and find the tasks more enjoyable and motivating (Park, 2003).Disengaged students, on the other hand, are those that avoid participating in the classroom and who do not develop a sense of belonging to the educational community.Sadly, the process of disengagement often ends in students dropping out of school (Finn & Zimmer, 2012).For this reason, it is essential to promote engaging strategies aimed to make students feel more attached not only to the contents being learned, but to the process of learning itself.But such strategies, especially within the university context, must go beyond enhancing participation in the classroom and compulsory attendance: they must improve students' creativity and talent when possible (Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017).
Among some of the strategies that are aimed to help engage students with the language learning process, we must mention social media tools, which can build up beneficial relations between teachers and learners due to their dynamic nature.Moreover, they allow students to establish a connection between the tools that they use on a day-to-day basis with those employed as part of their academic lives, and subsequently blurry the strict boundaries that surround them (Rutherford, 2010).
Social media tools allow information and education to be combined with entertainment through the use of multimodal resources (e.g., texts, images, videos, and audios), thus motivating learners to feel more engaged with the learning process and promoting partnership among students, effective self-learning, and creativity (Espuny et al., 2011).
Nevertheless, social media also has its own limitations.Perhaps one of the most prominent challenges is the generation gap existing between digital natives (skilful in terms of managing Internet resources as well as their own social media accounts) and technophobes (who tend to lack training in digital resources).This gap often leads to instructors focusing on the use of more traditional forms of teaching, such as textbook-based lessons that do not leave any room for creativity and place students in a passive position where no active voice is expected from them.Teachers, however, must overcome this objection in order to engage with educational platforms beyond traditional ones, and integrate social media networks into their teachings so as to shift the focus from obsolete perspectives to present-day education (Ucar & Goksel, 2020).Moreover, they must create didactic intervention strategies as part of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
TikTok has become one of the most prominent social media platforms: according to Brooks (2021), by December 2021 it had already surpassed popular applications such as Google and Facebook, thus becoming the most visited website in 2021.TikTok is based on the creation of short videos whose duration varies between fifteen seconds and one minute.In addition, TikTok offers its users a quick way to share a wide variety of creative content, as these short videos cover very different areas, ranging from dancing and cooking to comedy.Nevertheless, the educational potential of TikTok has been largely ignored, as the majority of the studies researching educational innovation generally focus on other social media networks such as Twitter (Ferriter et al., 2011;García-Suárez et al., 2015;Garrigos-Simón et al., 2016;Junco et al., 2012;Mustafa, 2012) or even Facebook (Kasuma & Adi Kasuma, 2017;Ucar & Goksel, 2020)in which all 622 participants reported to having at least one Facebook account which they frequently accessed multiple times a day.The findings show that the students possessed positive attitudes, motivation, self-confidence in using Facebook to learn English language.They also reported to have acquired new English words and sentence structures from their engagement with Facebook.In terms of gender and ethnicity, it is the female students, and Indian respondents who illustrated highly positive perceptions of English language acquisition, motivation, attitudes, and self-confidence, when engaging with Facebook.The awareness of these differences may assist the creation of more suitable learning strategies especially with the integration of Facebook and other social media.Keywords: Facebook, English language learning, gender, ethnicity, attitudes, motivation, self-confidence, acquisitionCite as: Kasuma, S.A.A. (2017.

Description of the implemented project
Scholars have only recently started to research the influence that TikTok has on its users, as well its cultural repercussions (Zuo & Wang, 2019), and only a few have focused on its educational potential: Yang (2020) concentrated on the use of TikTok in the EFL classroom and concluded that most participants proactively wanted to use the aforementioned social media network to learn English beyond the classroom, while Rach and Lounis (2021) explored TikTok's learning initiative, EduTok, and reached the conclusion that it works a point of reference to show that students' attention is shifting to a more democratised type of learning environment.
The TikTok project implemented in this study was integrated with ICT tools and social media platforms, two resources that are trending upwards nowadays.The project dealt with the edition of a historical TikTok that should last no more than one minute (as the app allows).Such videos were not recorded at the University's grounds, but in places chosen by the students.In addition, they used their own props: some of them bought their own costumes, while others made them themselves.In reference to the evaluation criteria, this project was worth 20% of the final grade.Moreover, the students had to choose a specific topic extracted from the list presented below:

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General objective 1: To analyse the reception of a TikTok project on the part of the British History students enrolled in the Degree in English Studies from the University of Málaga.

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General objective 2: To discover the motivation and learning that the students engaged with this project experienced after carrying out said task.

Sample
The participants in this study are second-year students from the University of Málaga enrolled in the Degree in English Studies.The total sample is formed by 69 participants (n=69), most of them women (74%; Fig 1) in ages ranging from 19 to 30 years old, the average age being 20.The distribution is asymmetrical (Fig. 2), with a higher presence of cases whose age remains under the value of the mean, which is almost 21 (20.9 years; standard deviation: ±2.4 years).Men's ages range from 19 to 27, the median being 20 and the mean being 21.1; women's range from 19 to 30, the median also being 20 and the mean being 20.9.

Instrument
The instrument used in this study was an online questionnaire specifically designed for this purpose that was uploaded into the University of Málaga's Moodle platform.The questionnaire was composed of a total of 34 items divided in three clearly differentiated sections.By means of this instrument, the students evaluated their experiences with the project.
Several aspects were taken into account in the elaboration of this questionnaire: (i) the individuals who answered the questionnaire (i.e., their age, gender, etc.); (ii) the temporary nature specifying the moment in which the project took place; (iii) the content, which justifies the questions that compose the questionnaire and the type of answers obtained; and, lastly, (iv) the tools that were used in its analysis.
The instrument was validated by expert judgement formed by teachers from the Degree in English Studies at the University of Málaga.In order to select the experts, experience in ICT tools teaching and in projects related to the CLIL methodology were considered.Furthermore, said teachers linked their research to educational innovation and ICT tools.
The questionnaire consisted of 16 items: 8 Likert questions with 5 options (1-5; from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree), 6 responses with dummy variables (yes/no or true/ false), and finally 2 more, with 4 nominal categories.Cronbach's alpha reliability was also analysed, obtaining a punctuation of .89.Consequently, it is possible to say that all of the questions contribute in a sufficient way to the total reliability of the questionnaire in spite of their changing variety in terms of format of the answers.

Data analysis procedure
The statistical analysis has been conducted using the computer application IBM-SPSS Statistics version 251 .The following techniques and statistical tests have also been used: 1.The description of categorical variables with frequency tables and percentages.2. Quantitative variables are described using the usual measures of central tendency (median and mean) and of variability (standard deviation and range).3. The reliability of the questionnaire has been tested using Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which measures internal consistency.A value over .60 indicates that reliability is, at least, acceptable, while a value over .80indicates that it is high or very high (>.90).4. A chi-square test for independence was used to analyse the correlation between two categorical variables.This type of test is used to determine the presence/absence of a relationship between variables of this kind.The magnitude/intensity of the relationship was calculated using Cramer's V coefficient (similar to Pearson's), specific to this type of variable.In all of these inferential statistics tests, a result is considered significant when p<.05 (n.c. 5% habitual) and highly significant when p<.01 (n.c.1%).

QUESTIoNNAIRE RESUlTS
Table 1 below summarises the results of the 69 participants' responses to each of the items included in the questionnaire.The items can be divided in two sections: those related to the role as a student (1-11) and those associated with the role as a teacher (12-16).

QUESTIoNNAIRE ANAlySIS
Below are the results of the descriptions of the 69 participants' responses to each of the items.

Items related to the role as a student
_ Item: Effectiveness of CLIL.95.7% (66 cases) of the participants deem the CLIL methodology as useful._ Item: Interest in innovative ways of learning.Slightly more than half of the sample (59.4%; 41 cases) strongly agree that they like innovative ways of learning.To that number, we can add another 36.2% of students that agree.In the light of this, the mean of agreement of this item is 3.55 points (over a maximum of 5)._ Item: Internalisation of the contents in a more significant way.94.2% (65 cases) affirm that this type of activity helps to better internalise the contents.

Porta Linguarum
No. 38, June 2022 92 _ Item: Likeliness to remember what has been learned.88.4% (n=61) believe that with this type of activity they will not forget what they have learned._ Item: Improvement of research skills.The answers to this item show that there is a lot of confidence on this method regarding the improvement of research skills.The mean of disagreement is only 0.96 (out of 5), as 33.3% (n=23) strongly agree and 42% (n=29) agree._ Item: Most difficult aspect of the production.This is one of the purely categorical items.Out of 4 options, the participants answered: 56.5% "editing", 30.4% "making-off" and 13% "documentation"._ Item: Most enjoyable aspect of the production.This is the second one with the same format.34.8% indicate that what they enjoyed the most was the making-off, with documentation being a close second (27.5%).The rest is equally divided between editing (18.8%) and team work (18.8%)._ Item: Willingness to repeat this project.91.3% of the participants (63 students) would like to repeat this type of project._ Item: Usefulness of the activity in other courses/subjects.92.8% think this type of activity would be useful in other courses._ Item: Usefulness of CLIL.The degree of agreement is notable, with a mean of 3.48 over 5. 56.5% strongly agree and 37.7% agree that CLIL is useful.

Items related to the role as a teacher
_ Item: Improvement of students' capacities.There is a noticeable degree of agreement with the affirmation that these methodologies improve the students' skills, the mean being 3.29 points (over 5) as a consequence of 46.6% (n=32) strongly agreeing and 40.6% (n=28) agreeing._ Item: Challenge for teachers.Regarding this question, there is not such a high degree of agreement, the mean being 2.59 over 5.Only 15.9% strongly agree and 37.7% agree that new methodologies are challenging for teachers._ Item: Preference for old-fashioned methodologies.The preference over traditional/ old-fashioned methodologies is low, the mean being 1.20 points over 5. 31.9% of participants strongly disagree with the affirmation, and 27.5% agree.33.3% (23 cases) respond in a neutral way._ Item: Interest in innovative ways of teaching.The interest in new ways of teaching is high: mean of 3.42 points over 5.More than half of the participants (a 53.6%) strongly agree, together with 37.7% who agree._ Item: Willingness to implement CLIL in their classes.Almost all the participants, 95.7% (66 out of 69), would implement the CLIL methodology in their classes.

CoRRElATIoNS BETwEEN ITEMS
A chi-squared test and Cramer's V coefficient was used in all the correlations with the intention of homogenising the procedure, although Likert items (1.5) could also have had a different statistical treatment.The results are detailed below.

Effectiveness of CLIL vs. Improvement of students' capacities
Although there is a large number of participants who answered "yes" to Effectiveness of CLIL and at the same time strongly agreed (46.4%) or at least agreed (37.7%) with Improvement of students' capacities, this relationship (V coefficient=.21)does not achieve statistical significance (p≤.05).It is possible that this is due to an insufficient N, since the association between an affirmative answer to Effectiveness of CLIL and agreement with Improvement of students' capacities is evident.

Interest in innovative ways of learning vs. Usefulness of CLIL and willingness to implement it in their classes
In the study of the relationship between Interest in innovate ways of learning and Usefulness of CLIL, there seems to be a strong (V coef.=.52), highly significant (p.<.001) correlation, which can be explained by the positive association between the degrees of agreement: 46.4% strongly agree with both, 23.2% agree with both, and 23.1% agree with one and strongly agree with the other.
Regarding the relationship between Interest in innovative ways of learning and Willingness to implement CLIL in their classes, the correlation is less strong than the previous one (V=.31)but still achieves statistical significance (p≤.05).The association tends to show a positive relationship between the degree of agreement with the two items, since the analysis shows that participants who either strongly agree or agree with Interest in innovative ways of learning tend to respond "yes" to item Willingness to implement CLIL in their classes (58% and 34.8%, respectively).
There seems to be a strong (V coef.=.52), highly significant (p.<.001) correlation, which can be explained by the positive association between the degrees of agreement: 46.4% strongly agree with both, 23.2% agree with both, and 23.1% agree with one and strongly agree with the other.
Regarding the relationship between Interest in innovative ways of learning and Willingness to implement CLIL in their classes, the correlation is less strong than the previous one (V=.31)but still achieves statistical significance (p≤.05).The association tends to show a positive relationship between the degree of agreement with the two items, since the analysis shows that participants who either strongly agree or agree with Interest in innovative ways of learning tend to respond "yes" to the item Willingness to implement CLIL in their classes (58% and 34.8%, respectively).

Satisfaction with the activity's methodological approach vs. Interest in innovative ways of teaching
The study of this association reveals a very strong (V=.72),highly significant (p<.001) and positive correlation in the degree of agreement to these items: 47.8% strongly agree with both items, and 20.3% agree with both of them; moreover, 17.4% agree with one of them and strongly agree with the other.

Likeliness to remember what has been learned vs. Challenge for teachers
In this relationship, the found coefficient (V=.19) does not achieve statistical significance (p≤.05), and neither does the data show a clear tendency that associates the participants' answers, since those who answer affirmatively to Likeliness to remember what has been learned divide their answer between different degrees of agreement in Challenge for teachers: 11.6% strongly agree, 31.9%agree, 23.2% are neutral, 15.9% disagree and 5.8% strongly disagree.Therefore, in this case we do not have any statistical evidence that justifies accepting that these variables (items) are related.

Interest in innovative ways of learning and improvement of research skills vs Preference for old-fashioned methodologies
In the study of the association between Interest in innovative ways of learning and Preference for old-fashioned methodologies, there is a strong intensity correlation (V=.96), which is highly significant (p<.001) but negative, since 26.1% of those who agree with Interest in innovative ways of learning strongly disagree with Preference for old-fashioned methodologies, and 18.8% disagree.On the other hand, there is a 20.3% less of cases who agreed with Interest in innovative ways of learning but were neutral (less agreement) to Preference for old-fashioned methodologies.The subjects who answer neutral to Interest in innovative ways of learning strongly agree, agree or, at most, are neutral to Preference for old-fashioned methodologies.
When studying Improvement of research skills and Preference for old-fashioned methodologies together, a strong (V=.47),highly significant (p<.001) positive correlation has been found, associating disagreement between the two items: 15.9% strongly disagree with both, 13% disagree with both, 18.8% disagree with one and strongly disagree with both; and finally, reinforcing the positive association, 10.1% answer in a neutral way to both.

Internalisation of the contents in a more significant way vs Likeliness to remember what has been learned
The analysis shows a strong correlation between both items (V=.49), highly significant (p<.001), since 87% of the sample responded affirmatively to both of them, plus 4.3% who responded negatively to both.8.6% responded in opposite ways to one and the other.

Most difficult aspect of the production vs Most enjoyable aspect of the production
A moderate (V=.36) and significant (p>.01) correlation has been found between these items.The association is mainly determined by the fact that those who answer "editing" in Most difficult aspect of the production, tend to answer "documentation" (21.7%) or "making-off" (23.2%) in Most enjoyable aspect of the production.The rest of the answer is divided, which is why the relation is weaker than in previous coefficients; for instance: (a) the 11.6% who answer "making-off" in Most difficult aspect of the production, answer "team work" in Most enjoyable aspect of the production, but another 7.2% answer "editing"; (b) the 5.8% who answer "documenting" in Most difficult aspect of the production, answer "editing" in Most enjoyable aspect of the production, but another 5.8% answer "making-off".

Willingness to repeat this project vs Usefulness of the activity in other courses/subjects
The study shows a very strong (V=.71),highly significant (V=.71) correlation between these two items, since 89.9% of the cases responded affirmatively to both, plus 5.8% who do it negatively to both.Only 4.3% has given opposite answers to one and the other.

CoNClUSIoNS
The results of this study suggest that in this time and age the use of new technologies and social media is totally justified.ICT tools appear to be very effective and motivating for higher education students since they can relate to them on a daily basis, as technologies have had a relevant role in their life since their childhood and has therefore shaped their way of thinking and learning (García-Sánchez et al., 2017).TikTok in particular, due to its current popularity, emerges as a very interesting tool to be used in the classroom.
It can be noted that the participants of the study show a strong interest in innovative ways of learning, with over 59.4% of the students being satisfied with this specific activity's methodological approach.The use of social media platforms for educational purposes seems to help increase the internalisation of the contents being taught and the likeliness to remember what has been learned, and it leads to the improvement of research skills and students' capacities.Furthermore, the results indicate that development of said project fosters, at the same time, teamwork and the oral skills of the students, which are two important competences that are crucial for meeting the challenges of the working world (García-García et al., 2014;Pérez Alarcón, 2010), and the global society in which we live.
By drawing on the results obtained, it can then be affirmed that the use of TikTok as an educational tool enhances the development of digital competences and autonomy which are highly necessary for students in contemporary society.A total of 57% of surveyed students said that the most difficult aspect to attain during the production of the TikTok was the edition process, thus showing that by using this tool students can improve their digital competence in an inter-disciplinary way.Likewise, 54% of surveyed students stated that they had learnt a lot from the production of this short film, implying that they have acquired certain digital abilities which they did not master before.When asked about the success of these kind of methodologies in class in their role as potential teachers, students stated that these innovative methodologies are a clear asset to any student: 46% of students strongly agreed with this affirmation, and 41% agreed, making up a total of 87% of students that think that new methodologies are a real advantage for students in the twenty-first century.Living in a globalised society, university students are required to work in an autonomous way in order to carry out different tasks that will lead them to a more authentic way of learning and assuming concepts (Romero Ariza & Pérez Ferra, 2009).It is paramount, then, to begin changing the awareness of the new teachers, and a transformation in old-fashioned parameters must be undertaken so that we can prepare students for a competitive and plural society.Future teachers' expertise in innovative methodologies should also be fostered so that they can acquire the necessary skills to use the appropriate tools to teach students with the objective of preparing them to confront this century's demands.
However, this project is not exempt from certain shortcomings since students might refuse to use social media or may simply not be familiar with such platforms.In this case, alternatives must also be considered and offered: in the case of this study, they were allowed to create TikToks with an off-voice and without showing their faces; they could also create a short film if they did not wish to use TikTok.
In conclusion, the study reveals a highly positive attitude on the part of the students both towards innovative methodologies in general and towards the use of TikTok as an educational tool in particular.Students are able to develop an inter-disciplinary competence, since this project combines history, the use of meta-language, and technology.In addition, they are able to cultivate essential skills such as working in teams.English is thus practiced not only orally, but also as a resource to search for information.Moreover, this study hints at the usefulness of projects like this one for the purposes of developing essential competences, as well as to ICT tools and motivation being especially helpful in favouring meaningful learning and, ultimately, in promoting the change that education needs.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Composition of the sample according to gender (n=69)

Table 1 .
Distribution of the answers to the questions of the questionnaire.N=69 students