Social media use by instructional design departments

Abstract

The aim of this investigation was to gain an understanding of the use of institutional social media accounts by graduate departments. This study focused particularly on the social media accounts of instructional design (ID) graduate programs. Content and statistical analyses were conducted to examine 24,948 tweets posted by ID programs (n = 22) on Twitter. Results revealed that ID graduate programs primarily used Twitter to broadcast resources and materials related to the field. Additionally, results showed that ID programs most frequently used Twitter to boost the profile of their program. Yet, tweets highlighting student and faculty accomplishments had the highest percentage of community interactions (likes and retweets). These findings suggest that ID programs are functioning as filters of information relevant to the field rather than conversational hubs. IntroductionAccording to the Pew Research Center, social media adoption in the United States has grown from 5% in 2005 to 69% percent in 2016 (Social Media Fact Sheet, 2016). Such adoption rates seem to be a global trend (Poushter, 2016), and it can be said that social media use has become an integral part of many people's daily lives (Aydin, 2012;Rodríguez-Hoyos, Salmón, & Fernández-Díaz, 2015). Used as a means of communication, collaboration, and content creation (Alzouebi & Isakovic, 2014;Luo, Wang, & Han, 2013), social media are used in a wide array of settings, including educational ones (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012;Manca & Ranieri, 2016.The majority of the current literature focuses on examining social media use and integration within formal educational settings (e.g., Allen & Nelson, 2013;Bista, 2015;Gao, Luo, & Zhang, 2012;Lin, Hoffman, & Borengasser, 2013), and little attention has been paid to how graduate departments or programs use social media in informal ways. While it is not uncommon for graduate departments or programs to have an institutional social media presence, the instructional design (ID) field has a limited understanding of how our programs use social media. What content are ID programs sharing online? How are these graduate programs interacting with stakeholders? And how do individuals interact with the different kinds of content that ID programs share online?We are motivated to better understand how ID programs are using social media to make greater sense of ID programs' online presence as well as the role that social media serve for program purposes. While higher education institutions use social media for a variety of purposes -such as showcasing a program, enhancing institutional recruitment, communicating with stakeholders, and engaging in community-building Rosenberg, Terry, Bell, Hiltz, & Russo, 2016;Veletsianos, Kimmons, Shaw, Pasquini, & Woodward, 2017) -very little is known about how graduate programs in particular use social media. The goal of this research is twofold: to increase the knowledge base and illustrate the practice of social media use by graduate programs.In this study, we used qualitative and quantitative method...

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