Vietnamese English Majors' Perceptions of TikTok as an Informal Vocabulary Learning Resource

Abstract

Social media platforms are increasingly used by students to encounter English beyond the classroom. This study had three objectives. First, it described English-major students' perceptions of TikTok as a vocabulary-learning resource and the dimensions underlying those perceptions. The second was to compare perceptions across gender and daily TikTok-use groups. The third was to examine how these dimensions relate to self-reported English proficiency. 580 English-major students at one public university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, completed a cross-sectional questionnaire survey, all of whom reported prior experience learning English vocabulary through TikTok. We analyzed responses to the 13-item questionnaire in SPSS 27 using descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, independent-samples t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and multiple regression. Two dimensions emerged: active engagement and practical application, and perceived benefits and learning attitudes. Participants reported generally positive perceptions (M = 3.75, SD = 0.83). Female participants scored higher than male participants, with large effect sizes. Students who used TikTok for one to two hours a day had the highest mean scores, although the effect sizes for daily use were small. Both dimensions were positively associated with self-reported English proficiency (R² = .426), with active engagement showing the stronger association. These results suggest that TikTok's value for vocabulary learning may depend on how actively students engage with its content. Because the findings rest on self-reported data from a single university, they do not show that TikTok improves vocabulary knowledge. Future research should use objective vocabulary measures and include students from several institutions.