Social media has become a useful tool for learning and teaching due to its functions for knowledge sharing, such as documents exchange, virtual communication, and knowledge formation. Higher education institutions (HEIs) that recognise the value of social media and the importance of individual motivation have sought to encourage its use to bolster learning performance. Using social cognitive theory and connectivism theory, we developed a model that theorises the influence of social media and individual motivation (reputation and altruism) on knowledge sharing and learning performance among students in higher education. To test the model, we employed covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB SEM) on survey data that was collected using questionnaires from 407 students enrolled in the top 10 private universities in West Malaysia. Congruently, we established the utility of the Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio (which was traditionally confined to variance-based or partial least squares SEM) as a discriminant validity measure for CB SEM. As a result, our study empirically evidences that social media functions (documents exchange, virtual communication, and knowledge formation) and individual motivation (reputation) are core factors that HEIs can leverage to encourage knowledge sharing and improve learning performance among tertiary students. The paper concludes with a discussion of its implications, limitations, and future research directions.

社交媒体因其文档交换、虚拟交流和知识形成等知识共享功能，已成为一种有用的学习和教学工具。认识到社交媒体的价值和个人动机重要性的高等教育机构 (HEI) 试图鼓励使用社交媒体来提高学习成绩。使用社会认知理论和连接主义理论，我们开发了一个模型，该模型将社交媒体和个人动机（声誉和利他主义）对高等教育学生的知识共享和学习表现的影响进行了理论化。为了测试该模型，我们对使用问卷收集的调查数据采用了基于协方差的结构方程模型 (CB SEM)，该调查数据来自在西马来西亚排名前 10 的私立大学就读的 407 名学生。一致地，我们建立了异质-单质 (HTMT) 比率（传统上仅限于基于方差或偏最小二乘 SEM）作为 CB SEM 的区分有效性度量的效用。因此，我们的研究实证证明，社交媒体功能（文件交换、虚拟交流和知识形成）和个人动机（声誉）是高等教育机构可以用来鼓励知识共享和提高大专学生学习成绩的核心因素。本文最后讨论了其影响、局限性和未来的研究方向。我们的研究实证证明，社交媒体功能（文件交换、虚拟交流和知识形成）和个人动机（声誉）是高等教育机构可以用来鼓励知识共享和提高大学生学习成绩的核心因素。本文最后讨论了其影响、局限性和未来的研究方向。我们的研究实证证明，社交媒体功能（文件交换、虚拟交流和知识形成）和个人动机（声誉）是高等教育机构可以用来鼓励知识共享和提高大学生学习成绩的核心因素。本文最后讨论了其影响、局限性和未来的研究方向。