A comparative study of teachers and students use of social media for interaction with other people

To promote effectiveness and competitiveness of teaching in higher education, teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people has to be analysed.. The res

Chapter 10

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9455-2.ch010

ABSTRACT

Economic crisis strongly influences teaching To promote effectiveness and competitiveness of teaching

in higher education, teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people has to

be analysed The research question is as following: are there any similarities and differences between teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people? The purpose of the research

is to compare teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people The ing of the key concepts of “social media” and “web technologies” is studied Exploratory research is used The empirical study was based on teachers’ and students’ case studies Descriptive statistics was implemented for primary data analysis The findings allow drawing the conclusions on the teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people A hypothesis is proposed Directions of further research are formulated.

mean-INTRODUCTION

The contemporary situation in the world can be described by a number of crises such as social, economic, financial, political, etc as depicted in Figure 1

By crisis, a problem situation is meant The terms problem situation (Sokol, 2008), problem and

solving a contradiction (Сорокин, 1977) are considered synonymously (Bassus & Zaščerinska, 2012)

Thereby, a problem situation implies solving a contradiction (Žogla, 2001; Čehlova, 2002; Ņikiforovs,

A Comparative Study of

Teachers’ and Students’

Use of Social Media for

Interaction with Other People

2003) Therein, contradiction is defined as two incompatible requirements that are set to one element/subject/thing/etc (Sokol, 2008) Contradiction creates contradictory needs: the necessity in change and stability (Grabovska, 2006) as demonstrated in Figure 2.

It should be noted that solving a contradiction often demands on application of non-traditional and innovative solutions Problem situations emerge in different dimensions of life of the modern world such as society, finance, politics, and economy Thus, a crisis in society is identified as social crisis,

in finance – financial crisis, in politics – political crisis, and in economy – economic crisis As all the dimensions of life of the modern world are inter-related, problem situations, or, in other words, crises, are inter-dependent, too

Among others, economic crisis is a cornerstone for the situation development in the world By nomic crisis, transformation from economy’s growth to economy’s slow-down and recession is under-stood Economic crisis is revealed by

eco-• The fall of GDP (gross domestic product), investment spending, capacity utilization, household income, business profits and inflation, as well as

• The increase in bankruptcies and the unemployment rate

Economic crisis affects many dimensions of the contemporary life in the world such as medicine, transportation, education, etc as revealed in Figure 3

Hence, higher education as the tertiary level of education as illustrated in Figure 4 is formed by economic crisis, too

Economic crisis has a two-fold influence on higher education as shown in Figure 5:

Figure 1 The relationship between the contemporary situation in the world and crises

Figure 2 Elements of contradiction

• On the one hand, the economic crisis has reinforced the value of higher education as educational attainment has always had a huge impact on employability (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2013) as well as social cohesion (The European Council by the Reflection Group on the Future of the EU 2030, 2010).

• On the other hand, the economic crisis has led to the critical importance of expanding access to

as many students as possible, increasing the capacity of state institutions to serve students, and refocusing energies on retention and pedagogical research (Galilee-Belfer, 2010)

The economic crisis changes higher education at the macro, mezzo and micro levels (Tsiligiris, 2012)

as shown in Figure 6

By the macro level of higher education, a society is meant The mezzo level of higher education plies a higher education institution And, as the micro level of higher education, students are identified

im-It should be noted that all three levels of higher education are inter-related im-It means that shifts in one

of the levels of higher education change the other levels of higher education: the economic crisis has led to expanding enrollments while severely constraining spending, especially in developing countries, leading to larger classes, less-trained teachers, deteriorating facilities, and less access to textbooks and

Figure 3 Life dimensions affected by economic crisis

Figure 4 The relationship between education and higher education

Figure 5 The relationship between economic crisis and higher education

other learning materials This, combined with the very difficult out-of-school circumstances children face, leads to high rates of repetition and dropouts and little learning for those who manage to stay in school (Klees, 2012).

Moreover, the economic crisis strongly influences the mezzo level of higher education Higher

Education Institution that includes teaching, research and institution autonomy as depicted in Figure 7.

Teaching is, on average, more affected by economic crisis than research activities (European versity Association, 2011) and academic autonomy

Uni-Teaching facilitates teachers’ and students’ creation of new products, new patents, new entrepreneurial activities and new jobs as students succeed harder to find a job in the light of enormous socio-economic and unprecedented demographic challenges Therefore, innovative teaching should demonstrate how

to turn challenges into advantages, thereby producing innovative products and services of the highest quality and improving their competitiveness

To promote effectiveness and competitiveness of teaching in higher education, teachers’ and dents’ use of social media for interaction with other people has to be analysed Moreover, teachers’ and students’ innovativeness and competitiveness more and more depend on their use of social media A lot

stu-of research efforts were made to investigate teachers’ and students’ use stu-of Information and tion Technologies These studies have highlighted how Information and Communication Technologies reconfigure classroom practice, create new variety of learning practices, change teachers’ and students’ role or improve students’ engagement and outcomes, among others (Crook, Park, Lawson, Lundqvist, Drinkwater, Walsh, Gomez, Orsmond, Maw & Papaefthmiou, 2010) Little attention has been given to the comparison of teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people Such a lacuna has to be filled in as teachers and students have a two-fold role:

Communica-Figure 6 Levels of higher education

Figure 7 Dimensions of the mezzo levels of higher education

• In society, teachers and students are the agents of change and,

• In education and training, teachers and students are the key actors for the development of use of social media for interaction with other people

The research question is as following: are there any similarities and differences between teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people?

The aim of the research is to compare teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people underpinning elaboration of a hypothesis on teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people

The meaning of the key concept of social media and web technologies is studied Moreover, the

analysis shows a potential model for development, indicating how the steps of the process are related following a logical chain: web technologies and social media used by teachers and students for interaction with other people → empirical study within a multicultural environment → conclusions The exploratory type of the comparative study is used in the empirical study

The novel contribution of this paper is the hypothesis formulated on teachers’ and students’ use of cial media for interaction with other people to promote effectiveness and competitiveness of teaching

BACKGROUND

The methodological background of the present research is based on the System-Constructivist Theory The System-Constructivist Theory is introduced as the New or Social Constructivism Pedagogical Theory The System-Constructivist Theory is formed by

• Parsons’s System Theory (Parsons, 1976) on any activity as a system,

• Luhmann’s Theory (Luhmann, 1988) on communication as a system,

• The Theory of Symbolic Interactionalism (Mead, 1973),

• The Theory of Subjectivism (Groeben, 1986)

The System-Constructivist Theory implies the dialectical principle of the unity of opposites that contributes to the understanding of the relationship between external (social, social interaction, teaching, etc) and internal (individual, cognitive activity, learning, etc) perspectives as the synthesis of external and internal perspectives (Bassus & Zaščerinska, 2012) as shown in Figure 8

In comparison, the Constructivism Theory focuses on the internal perspective as depicted in Figure

9, the Social Constructivist Theory – on the external perspective as well as on the balance between the balance between the external and internal perspectives (Bassus & Zaščerinska, 2012) as illustrated in Figure 10

The term perspective in the present research means to embody certain fundamental assumptions (Barry,

2002) The external perspective accentuates the sociological and pedagogical contribution to the human development Therefore, the external perspective implies social interaction of development (Surikova 2007b) Therein, social interaction is defined as the unity of outside developmental circumstances and individual psychological characteristics in one’s experience (Surikova, 2007a) The internal perspective focuses on the psychological aspect of the human development Thereby, the internal perspective refers to cognitive activity (Surikova 2007b) Cognitive activity refers to the unity of processes of sense, percep-tion, attention, memory, thinking, speech and imagination (Ситаров, 2004), by which people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems

The System-Constructivist Theory and, consequently, the System-Constructivist Approach to ing introduced by Reich (Reich, 2005) emphasize that human being’s point of view depends on the subjective aspect:

learn-Figure 8 Elements of the System-Constructivist Theory

Figure 9 Elements of the Constructivism Theory

Figure 10 Elements of the Social-Constructivist Theory

• Everyone has his/her own system of external and internal perspectives (Ahrens & Zaščerinska, 2010) that is a complex open system (Rudzinska, 2008), and

• Experience plays the central role in the knowledge construction process (Maslo, 2007)

• Therein, the subjective aspect of human being’s point of view is applicable to the present research

on comparison of teachers’ and students’ use of social media for interaction with other people

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The present part of the contribution demonstrates the definitions of social media and web technologies.Web technologies provide the technological foundation for use of social media Each period of the evolution of web technologies transforms the way social media is used for interaction with other people

in general and higher education is delivered in particular The study of the development of Web gies and Web technologies in education has not had a long story (Bassus, Ahrens & Zaščerinska, 2011; Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013) as described in Table 1

technolo-Initially, use of Web 1.0, the basic internet Web, was associated with publishing corporate tion, developing marketing and sales plans and transactions with customers (Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013)

informa-Then, Web 2.0, the social Web, a platform for collaboration, offered users a new version of WWW, not so much in terms of updating the Web’s technical specifications, but rather in terms of the changes software developers and end users made to the way it was used (Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot

& Colino, 2013) Web 2.0 is qualitatively different from previous Web technologies as it has Web plications that facilitate information sharing, interoperability, user-centred design and collaboration in the WWW Examples of Web 2.0 are Web communities, Web services, Web applications, social network services, video hosting services, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies, among others (O’Reilly, 2005) The late 1990s saw a change in the role of internet users as they began to create content and social value (Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013) The symbols of this era include YouTube, Facebook, Linkedln, deli.cio.us, Wikipedia, among others Internet then became a cooperative platform

ap-in which collective power and networkap-ing effects opened up the possibility of generatap-ing extraordap-inary

Table 1 Web technologies in education in different historical periods

Part of all universities’ programmes

value These social changes in turn caused changes in business models that attempted to make the most

of each individual contribution and prepared to coexist in a definitively virtual environment Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013)

(Benito-Although it remains a challenge, or is still unfinished, the Web 2.0 era is giving way to Web 3.0 or what is known as the semantic Web Web 3.0 combines human and artificial intelligence to provide more relevant, opportune and accessible information Web 3.0 has a more powerful language derived from neuronal networks and genetic algorithms, with a particular emphasis on analysis, processing ca-pacity and how to generate new ideas based on user-generated information (Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013) Web 3.0 transforms Web into a database, a way of making content more accessible through multiple non-browser applications, artificial intelligence technologies, the semantic Web, the geospatial Web and the 3DWeb

The fourth step in the evolutionary process is occupied by Web 4.0 based on wireless communication (mobile devices or computers) connecting people and objects whenever and wherever in the physical

or virtual world in real time (Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013) For example, the GPS that guides cars and now helps drivers to improve the planned route or save fuel will shortly save them from having to handle it This 4.0 or mobile version is ready to take off, with an apparently remote Web 5.0, the ‘‘sensitive’’ Web, hard on its heels (Kambil, 2008) Various futuristic terms are currently being used in relation to technology use Web 5.0, the sensory and emotive Web, is designed to develop computers that interact with human beings This relationship will become a daily habit for many people Although at the moment the Web is ‘‘emotionally’’ neutral, that is, it does not perceive what users feel and although emotions are still difficult to map, there are already technologies that can measure their effects (Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013) One example is www.wefeelfine.org which tracks emotional phrases on the Web, categorises them and registers the frequency and location

of clusters of sentiments (Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013) Another example is the company EmotivSystems which has created neurotechnology Using headphones, users can interact with content that responds to their emotions or changes the facial expression of their avatars in real time If interactions can then be personalised to create experiences that excite users, then Web 5.0 will undoubtedly be more affable than its predecessors

In short, the fact that the Web’s evolutionary process has modified business orientation suggests that

it will unequivocally affect the quality and content of higher education The current economic context is characterised by change and the appearance of new models of production and innovation based on know-how, its applications and information processing The links between higher education, the world of work and other sectors in society must therefore be strengthened and renewed, and it is therefore essential for institutions to satisfy these new social demands In particular, there must be a balance between the new development of ICT and teacher competences (Benito-Osorio, Peris-Ortiz, Armengot & Colino, 2013).Web technologies are jointly formed by four dimensions, namely the infrastructure dimension, the functionality dimension, the data dimension, and the social (or socialization) dimension (Vossen, 2009)

as illustrated in Figure 11

Socialization, described as taking software or even user-generated content and sharing or jointly using

it with others, covers the aspect of user-generated content as it occurs in blogs or wikis, in tagging as well as in social bookmarking (Vossen, 2009) Skype, Classroom Management Systems, the eBay seller evaluation, the Amazon recommendation service, or Wikipedia (Vossen, 2009), where the increased data exchange within the system is no longer a limiting parameter with the current developments in the infrastructure, are classical examples and have found widespread acceptance in the community

The move towards mass collaboration (Tapscott, 2006) and/or mass socialization (Vossen, 2009) revealed by the change from person to people and from systems to service (Jones, 2009) has ensured the dominance in use of social media.

Typical social dimension of Web technologies include “social software” and online social networks (Vossen, 2009) as shown in Figure 12

“Social software” is identified as software that gets better (or at least more useful) the more people use

it (Vossen, 2009) While most of the time the software itself, i.e., the program system, does not change based on the number of its users or the frequency with which it is used, it is the application that the software is enabling Examples include Skype, the eBay seller evaluation, the Amazon recommendation service, or Wikipedia Especially the latter is a perfect example for what so-called mass collaboration (Tapscott, 2006) or crowdsourcing can achieve There is also another impact that socialization can have, namely that of improving some given software on a constant or perpetual basis Traditionally, software has never been free of bugs, security holes, or errors, and it has been common for a software company

to fix them and distribute new releases or versions of the software from time to time The new approach

is to do this at a much higher pace Software on the Web may nowadays be in a permanent beta state

of release and never finished Thus, for outsiders maintenance occurs on a permanent basis Such a state of perpetual beta may apply to a service that can only be accessed through an API (application program(ming) interface), in which case a user is not bothered by constant release changes, at least as long as the behaviour of the API is only extended, but not fundamentally modified

Then, Vossen (Vossen, 2009) considers that online social networks, another form of mass tion today, bring a dimension to the Web that goes beyond simple links between pages; they add links between people and between communities In such a network, direct links will typically point to our closest friends and colleagues, indirect links lead to the friends of a friend, and etc

socializa-A social network on the Web is typically the result of employing some software that is intended to focus on building an online community for a specific purpose Social networks connect people with common interests and may be as simple as a blog, or as complex as Facebook or MySpace for mostly

Figure 11 Dimensions of web technologies

Figure 12 Elements of social dimensions of web technologies

private applications, as LinkedIn or Xing for professional applications, or as Twitter for both The mary impact that the current Web developments are having in this area are that connecting people and communities constantly becomes easier, and it is not difficult anymore to maintain a professional or personal network of buddies worldwide Yet another impact is that a social network may open up novel sources of revenue, in particular through advertising Finally, Vossen (Vossen, 2009) underlines that two aspects should have become clear by the discussion so far:

pri-• On the one hand, the most obvious change that has recently occurred on the Web is that it has changed from a pure read Web as designed by Berners-Lee (Berners-Lee, 2000) to a read/write Web, where users not only draw information from, but also add information to it,

• On the other hand, the dimensions we have discussed exhibit various overlaps Indeed, ogy enables functionality, which as a “byproduct” leads to data collections, and users have a new tendency to socialize over the Web, by exploiting that functionality and the technology

technol-Thus, social media for interaction of teachers and students with other people includes such “social software” as online social networks and online networks for professional applications as Twitter, Xing, LinkedIn, ResearchGate as demonstrated in Figure 13 and many others

By professional applications of social media, both teachers’ and students’ use of social media within the teaching phase of the educational process is meant in the present research Teaching in formal higher education is defined as a purposefully organized process of educator’s sharing experience (knowledge,

Figure 13 Elements of social media used by teachers and students for interaction with other people

Figure 14 Elements of the educational process

skills and attitudes) with students (Zaščerinska & Ahrens, 2013) It should be noted that teaching is part of the educational process The educational process includes teaching, peer-learning and learning (Zaščerinska & Ahrens, 2010) as depicted in Figure 14.

Each phase of the educational process is separated from the previous one, and the following phase

is based on the previous one (Zaščerinska & Ahrens, 2010)

Teaching implies both teachers’ and students’ interaction as well as their interaction with other people

as shown in Figure 15

Therein, online social networks and online networks for professional applications such as Twitter, Xing, LinkedIn, ResearchGate ensure both teachers’ and students’ interaction as well as their interaction with other people within the teaching phase of the educational process

Moreover, use of social media within the teaching phase of the educational process transforms ing into blended teaching In the present research, blended teaching is identified as the combination of traditional teaching and teaching utilized via social media as demonstrated in Figure 16

teach-Blended teaching is aimed at a safe environment for all the students (Zaščerinska & Ahrens, 2013) In order to provide a safe environment, the essence of constructive social interaction and its organizational regulations are considered by both the educator and students (Zaščerinska & Ahrens, 2013) Blended teaching is organized in a frontal way involving the students to participate (Zaščerinska & Ahrens, 2013):

• Educator makes previous experience rational The activity includes choice of forms and use of

resources including teachers’ and students’ use of social media that motivates the students The blended teaching process is under the educator’s guidance

• Peers do not participate in guidance of blended teaching Blended teaching is carried out

quali-tatively only with the help of the educator Dependence on the educator is observed The students study alongside but not together

Figure 15 Elements of teachers’ and students’ interaction within teaching

Figure 16 Elements of blended teaching

• Students create the system of the aim and objectives, search for a variety of information source

including teachers’ and students’ use of social media and obtain techniques of information piling including teachers’ and students’ use of social media Students fulfill blended teaching

com-qualitatively only with the educator’s help Dependence on the educator is observed, not dent on peers

depen-A short description of a research community network such as ResearchGate gives a short overview of functions of an online social network and online networks: ResearchGate is a social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators (Lin, 2012) The site has been described as a mashup of “Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn” that includes “profile pages, comments, groups, job listings, and ‘like’ and ‘follow’ buttons” (Lin, 2012) Members are encouraged to share raw data and failed experiment results as well as successes, in order to avoid repeating their peers’ scientific research mistakes (Dolan, 2012) Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is among the company’s investors (Levy, 2013) ResearchGate announced in 2013 that the site had two million members

It should be noted that by research community networks in the present contribution, use of web-based tools to discover and use research and scholarly information about people and resources (Clinical and Translational Science Award, 2012) is meant Research community networking tools serve as knowl-edge management systems for the research enterprise Research community networking tools connect institution-level/enterprise systems, national research networks, publicly available research data (e.g., grants and publications), and restricted/proprietary data by harvesting information from disparate sources into compiled expertise profiles for faculty, investigators, scholars, clinicians, community partners, and facilities Research community networks are designed for such target groups as (Barnett & Jardines, 2012):

• Investigators

◦ To discover potential collaborators,

◦ More rapidly and competitively to form teams,

◦ To identify targeted grant opportunities and

◦ To create digital vitae,

• Administrators

◦ To work with better data for institutional business intelligence,

◦ To better assess performance for annual reviews,

◦ To recruit new faculty and attract students,

• Researchers

◦ To study networks of science teams to improve research effectiveness

Research community networks (Barnett & Jardines, 2012) include four technology components such as

• A controlled vocabulary (eg., the VIVO Ontology) for data interoperability,

• An architecture for data integration and sharing (Linked Open Data),

• Applications for collaboration, funding, business intelligence, or administration, and

• Rich faculty profile data of publications, grants, classes, affiliations, interests, etc

Further on, repositories of profile data need to talk to institutional systems like faculty directories (Barnett & Jardines, 2012)