SOCIAL MEDIA – A VALUABLE LEARNING TOOL? Manu Sharma, Maria Stover, Kathy Menzie Washburn University
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SOCIAL MEDIA – A VALUABLE LEARNING TOOL?
Manu Sharma, Maria Stover, Kathy MenzieWashburn University
PURPOSEResearch questions and methodology
2
Factors:Social media & Millennials &Teaching & Kansas
3
Influence of social media on academic outcomes at a mid-size, Midwestern university.
Questions
4
▸ How do our students use social media?▸ What factors motivate their use of
social media?▸ How do they use traditional versus
non-traditional communication methods?
▸ How do they perceive its usefulness in supporting their learning experience?
▸ What obstacles do they see to the integration of social media into the classroom?
Method
▸ Stage one: online survey - distributed among students taking general education classes during spring and fall of 2015
▸ Responses: 320
▸ Stage two: paper diary – students record their media use habits daily for a three-day period
▸ Completed diaries: 71
5
RESULTSWhat we found out? Results from stage one.
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Demographics
7
Female47%
Male53%
Gender
92.1%
5.0%
0.7%2.0% 0.3%
18 - 2930 - 3940 - 4950 - 6465+
Age
Demographics
8
Freshmen49%
Sophomore27%
Junior17%
Senior8%
Year in school
Asian7% African American
11%Hispanic or Latino
6%
White / Cau-
casian73%
Other5%
Ethnicity
Social media use(frequencies)
9
Google+
You Tube
Tumblr
Snapchat
Vine
Flickr
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
268
201
55
53
32
188
189
81
28
67
9
National data
10
Number of friends(social capital)
11
Factors motivating the use of social media among students (frequencies)
12
Friend suggested it
Everyone I know is on either Facebook or Twitter or Instagram
Help others keep in touch with me
Find classmates
Received a promotional email
Get to know more people
Network in general
Find course information
Find dates
Find people with mutual interests
Find jobs
Other (please specify)
0 50 100 150 200 250
90
173
219
87
13
106
140
42
39
72
45
27
Communication methods used with friends and acquaintances(frequencies)
13
Face-to-face
Phone
Social network-ing
Text messag-ing
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
4
62
11
15
8
212
6
71
104
177
44
13
45
63
53
22
64
77
60
40
12
142
88
50
15
I don’t use this method More than one hour 30-60 minutes 10-30 minutes Less than 10 minutes
Communication methods used with faculty (frequencies)
14
Face-to-face
Phone
Social network-ing
Text messaging
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
9
5
151
183
171
46
12
2
7
6
75
50
10
5
11
92
113
20
8
11
72
113
108
89
91
I don’t use this method More than one hour 30-60 minutes 10-30 minutes Less than 10 minutes
Do you think social media could be helpful for learning?
15 Not helpful at all1%Not helpful
4%
Neutral/Don’t know24%
Helpful54%
Very helpful16%
What do you think is THE MAIN benefit of social media for learning?
16
Increase variety of class content
10%
Increase variety of class interac-
tion36%
Increases oppor-tunities for con-
tent creation25%
Creates a social support system
29%
How helpful do you find the following social networking site functions in a standard college class?(means)
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Provide access to class materials
To study and work on class assignments
To quickly exchange questions and answer between the instructor and
class mates
Connect with classmates to study or work on class assignments
To connect to faculty
3.00 3.20 3.40 3.60 3.80 4.00 4.20
3.59
3.43
4.00
4.06
3.75
On a scale of 1 to 5
Keytakeaways
18 • Social media use and motivations are in line with national data.
• Most students use F2F, text messaging and social media to communicate with friends, while they prefer email and F2F to reach faculty.
• Majority of students (71%) see social as a valuable tool for learning, yet close to a quarter (24%) are still unsure about it.
• The main benefits of social media for learning are:
Class interaction (36%)Social support (29%) Content creation (25%)
• Social media are seen as a way to connect with classmates and quickly exchange information between instructor and class
Biggest challenge to social networking site integration into the classroom
19
My professor does not know how to use it
13%
Professor is not willing to use it
30%
Lack of interest from students
21%
Lack of technical support
17%
Other (please specify)
20%
OTHER reasons forchallenge to SNS integration into the classroom
▸ Social network sites are meant for connecting with and sharing personal lives with friends.
▸ For academic purposes there’s already a full- fledged Washburn site (D2L) which separates school work from personal lives.
▸ More than 18 % felt that if integrated into a classroom system, social media could also distract student's attention.
▸ There were some who felt that it can lead to issues of privacy, confusion and stated that old school teaching is better.
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