The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades

Abstract

Despite the widespread use of social media by students and its increased use by instructors, very little empirical evidence is available concerning the impact of social media use on student learning and engagement. This paper describes our semester-long experimental study to determine if using Twitter -the microblogging and social networking platform most amenable to ongoing, public dialogue -for educationally relevant purposes can impact college student engagement and grades. A total of 125 students taking a first year seminar course for pre-health professional majors participated in this study (70 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group). With the experimental group, Twitter was used for various types of academic and co-curricular discussions. Engagement was quantified by using a 19-item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement. To assess differences in engagement and grades, we used mixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with class sections nested within treatment groups. We also conducted content analyses of samples of Twitter exchanges. The ANOVA results showed that the experimental group had a significantly greater increase in engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities. This study provides experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help engage students and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role.

Advancing social media in medical education

“…4 Students may be encouraged to tweet questions during lectures or conferences, using hashtags to link related Twitter conversations. 5 Some students may be asked to reflect on their training experiences by writing blog posts that can then be made available to their peers for comment or feedback. Students may collaborate in the creation of wikis related to medical topics, synthesizing information and sharing knowledge.…”

Undervisning og digitale medier - Distraktion, koncentration og engagement

“…Med de nye medier kan der tilbydes større variation i undervisningen og overskridelse af traditionel klasserumsundervisning (fx Elavsky 2012, Yaros 2012, Junco 2010). …”

Çevrimiçi Öğrenme Ortamlarında Öğrenci Bağlılık Ölçeği’nin Türkçe Uyarlaması: Geçerlik ve Güvenirlik Çalışması

“…Öğrenenlerin karşılaştığı güçlüklere rağmen çalışmaya devam edebilmesinde, gerçekten konu üzerinde yoğunlaşmasının sağlanmasında onların öğrenme ortamlarına yönelik bağlılıklarının artırılması önemli görülmektedir. Öğrenci bağlılığı, öğrencilerde öğrenme çıktılarının oluşturulabilmesinde harcadıkları çaba ve zaman olarak ele alınmaktadır (Carini, Kuh ve Klein, 2006;Kuh, 2009;Junco, Heiberger ve Loken, 2011;Junco, 2012;Krause ve Coates, 2008). Öğrencilerin etkinliklerde gönüllü rol alması (Stoval, 2003), öğrencilerin yüksek not alma, memnuniyetlerini artıran ve azim göstermelerini sağlayan eğitsel etkinliklere bağlılık derecesi (Chen, Gonyea ve Kuh, 2008) öğrenci bağlılığı olarak tanımlanmaktadır.…”