Giáo án Những kỹ thuật gia tăng giá trị thương hiệu

Giáo án Những kỹ thuật gia tăng giá trị thương hiệu The ubiquity of social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) is no more apparent than at the university. Social media are increasingly visible in higher education settings as instructors look to technology to mediate and enhance their instruction as well as promote active learning for students. Many scholars argue for the purposeful integration of social media as an educational tool. Empirical evidence, however, has lagged in supporting the claim. Most of the existing research on the utility and effectiveness of social media in the higher education class is limited to selfreported data (e.g., surveys, questionnaires) and content anal yses. This paper summarizes the scholarly writings as well as reviews the findings of empirical investigations. Some limitations are discussed, and future areas of research are proposed.

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The role of social media in higher education classes (real and virtual) – A

literature review

Paul A Tess

Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, 56 East River Road, Suite 250, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Available online 26 January 2013

Keywords:

Social media

Higher education

Facebook

Twitter

Blogs

Educational technology

a b s t r a c t

The ubiquity of social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) is no more apparent than at the university Social media are increasingly visible in higher education settings as instructors look to technology to mediate and enhance their instruction as well as promote active learning for students Many scholars argue for the purposeful integration of social media as an educational tool Empirical evidence, however, has lagged

in supporting the claim Most of the existing research on the utility and effectiveness of social media in the higher education class is limited to self-reported data (e.g., surveys, questionnaires) and content anal-yses This paper summarizes the scholarly writings as well as reviews the findings of empirical investi-gations Some limitations are discussed, and future areas of research are proposed

Ó2013 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved

1 Introduction

The growth of social media and other Web 2.0 technologies is

unprecedented (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010) Social

media technology has become an essential part of personal life as

users generate content, share photos, choose to ‘‘like’’, or interact

in a game The ubiquity of social media is no more apparent than

at the university where the technology is transforming the ways

students communicate, collaborate, and learn

Even as today’s college student experiences a variety of

class-room forms (i.e., ‘‘brick and mortar’’, virtual, hybrid), social media’s

use and influence are evolving depending on context Widely

em-braced as a tool for personal or business purposes, the notion that

social media could be an effective tool for educational purposes has

received recent attention At the same time, this developing arena

is receiving an increased research interest The potential role for

social media as a facilitator and enhancer of learning is worth

investigating As a result, this literature review will explore the

question, ‘‘What is the role of social media in the higher education

classroom (real and virtual)?’’ as described in current scholarship

and studied in empirical investigations

The review begins with a brief description of the literature

re-view methodology employed in the identification of relevant

works An operational definition for social media is offered

fol-lowed by a look at usage trends of the most popular social

net-working sites The next section of the review focuses on what

researchers have argued should be the antecedents of the

educa-tional use of social media The affordances and drawbacks of social

media use in class are explored next Scholarship surrounding each

of the most popular social media applications follows The review concludes with suggestions for future research as gleaned from the literature or proposed by the author

2 Methodology

A review of the literature was undertaken in September and Octo-ber of 2012 I systematically searched the following specialized data-base sources: Web of Science, EBSCOhost, and ERIC Additionally Google Scholar searches were performed Search words and phrases included Facebook, Higher Education, Social Media, Social Media in Education, MySpace, LinkedIn, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Social Networking Sites, and Blogs The ‘‘snowball’’ method of using the most recent works to find relevant articles cited in them provided additional articles Since keywords in research articles are not based

on common lists, it is highly likely that some of the literature was missed An interesting strategy from a literature review on the same theme could be noted here.Conole & Alevizou, 2010, besides the tra-ditional review approach, used social media (i.e., Cloudworks) to out-source to other researchers inviting their collective input

3 Definition and pervasiveness

3.1 Social media defined

Social media is a term that is broadly used to describe any num-ber of technological systems related to collaboration and commu-nity (Joosten, 2012) While it appears that a specific definition may

be elusive (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), social media is often de-scribed by example Social networking sites, blogs, wikis, multi-media platforms, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds

0747-5632/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

E-mail address: tessx004@umn.edu

Contents lists available atSciVerse ScienceDirect

Computers in Human Behavior

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w e l s e v i e r c o m / l o c a t e / c o m p h u m b e h

are among the applications typically included in recent

illustrations (Barnes & Lescault, 2011; McEwan, 2012) To narrow

the range for this review, social networking sites (SNSs) were

cho-sen to be the focus in recognition of the prevalence of SNSs such as

Facebook and MySpace, and LinkedIn Used interchangeably with

terms such as social networking or online social networks, SNSs

are web-based services that allow users to make personal profiles,

create content, and share messages by connecting with other users

in the system (boyd & Ellison, 2007) Some researchers use the

more inclusive term Web 2.0 when referring to SNSs and other

so-cial media (Gruzd, Staves, & Wilk, 2011; Hemmi, Bayne, & Land,

2009; Kaplan & Haenline, 2010)

The task of defining social media is made more challenging by

the fact that it is constantly in a state of change SNSs evolve as

developers create new or enhanced features that will meet the

de-mands of users Some social networks are tailored to niche markets

so features may be differentiated for particular users For example,

Match.com and eHarmony.com are SNSs that cater to dating (and

were not included in this review) Ning allows users to create their

own social networks A brief description of Facebook’s

functional-ity portrays most current capabilities of SNSs Inside Facebook,

users can send messages, add friends, update personal profiles, join

groups, develop applications, host content, and learn about other

users through their online profiles (Haase, 2010)

3.2 Prevalence of social media

3.2.1 Facebook

Facebook may be the face of online social networks Developed

in 2004 by then Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg, it is the

‘‘dominant’’ social networking site (Lenhart et al., 2010) Among

the many studies reporting statistics related to Facebook adoption

and usage (e.g.,Hargittai, 2007; Jones & Fox, 2009; Lenhart &

Mad-den, 2007; Salaway & Caruso, 2008),Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe

(2007), found that 94% of their college students were users of

Face-book spending an average of 10–30 min on the site and having

150–200 friends More recently and in a larger study, 90% of

under-graduate college students were reported to have Facebook

ac-counts (Harvard, 2011) Reaching the one billion user mark

during the first days of October,2012 (Facebook.com), an

interest-ing usage trend has recently emerged College-age users

(Face-book’s most mature market) reportedly spent 25% less time on

the site in August of 2012, a declining trend predicted to continue

(Blodget, 2012)

3.2.2 MySpace

MySpace, co-founded by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson in

2003, was an early addition to the SNS field With enormous

growth in its first few years, by 2009 it was considered the leading

social media site (Lenhart, 2009) Fifty percent of adult social

net-working users reported that they owned a MySpace account Users

were found to be more likely women, Hispanic or black, and

high-school educated with some college experience The median age

was 27 years old Like Facebook it offers an interactive,

user-sub-mitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos,

music and videos (boyd et al., 2007)

3.2.3 LinkedIn

Used primarily for professional networking, LinkedIn is a

net-working site that launched in May, 2003 LinkedIn users usually

affiliate with others in their work maintaining a list of contacts

for people they know and trust The trust factor is an important

concept in this SNS as connecting with others requires either a

pre-existing relationship or some mutual contact (Papacharissi,

2009) Last December, comScore reported that LinkedIn had

reached the 35,000,000 user mark making it the third most visited

SNS in the United States social networking market (comScore December 23, 2011)

3.2.4 Blog

A weblog or blog is essentially an online journal where a num-ber of contributors participate by dialoging about a particular topic

or focus Like other social media, blogs allow users to post personal content, to comment on and connect to other media sites, and to make observations about other users’ posts (Du & Wagner, 2006) The word weblog was used as early as 1997 (Blood, 2000) Indica-tive of its growth, by 2004 the word blog was announced by Mer-riam-Webster as its Word of the Year ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/04words.htm) One of the main tracking and ranking services for blogs,Technorati.com (2012)( http://techno-rati.com), lists over 1,315,000 active sites in its directory As a basic tool, blogs today are most often provided by hosting services such

as Blogger, ModBlog, and Xanga Sophisticated and larger users may need to host their own blogs (Du & Wagner, 2006)

3.2.5 Twitter Twitter is a social networking site that is often termed a microb-logging service In contrast to Facebook or MySpace, Twitter limits posts or updates to 160 characters Some have suggested that Twit-ter makes for a fasTwit-ter mode of communication because of the rel-atively short post lengths (Java, Song, Finin, & Tseng, 2007) The average blogger may update every few days whereas the average microblogger will update several times a day (Java et al., 2007)

3.3 Social Impact

The Pew Internet Project, an initiative of the Pew Research Cen-ter, has gleaned extensive data on the social impact of the internet (www.pewinternet.org) Since 2007, the research organization has studied the use of social networking sites In their 2010 report of social media use among young adults, Lenhart et al.found 72 %

of online 18–29 year olds used SNSs which was significantly higher than the 39% of users older than 29 Sixty-six percent of young adults maintained a profile on My Space but only 7% on LinkedIn Among all age groups, young adults led the way in using Twitter

as 33% of the group reported posting or reading status updates More recently,Madden and Zickuhr (2011)reported that 83% of internet users within the ages 18–29 group used social networking sites (61% of those on a daily basis) Young adults were more likely

to use SNSs than older adults, but the percentage gap was reduced significantly from the previous 2 years Fifty to sixty-four year old users had more than doubled from 25% in 2009 to 51% in 2011 Of all web-based applications, only email and search engines were used more frequently than SNSs among all ages

While social networks have similar functionality, they exhibit different social norms and organization In a comparative analysis

of Facebook, LinkedIn, and another SNS called ASmallWorld, Papa-charissi (2009)concluded that Facebook was much more publicly open (a ‘‘glasshouse’’) where behavioral norms were looser Users could leave cues for one another, essentially constructing their own norms As was expected, LinkedIn was more tightly organized offering less room for spontaneity or norm generation The re-searcher posited that users did not have to wonder what was con-sidered right or wrong on this website

4 Antecedents of classroom use

4.1 Conceptual and theoretical antecedents

Given the prevalence of social media in general and the satura-tion of SNSs in particular, many higher educasatura-tion instructors have

looked to the technology to mediate and enhance their instruction

as well as promote active learning for students (Anderson, 2007;

Eijkman, 2008; McLoughlin & Lee, 2010; Selwyn, 2010) Of course,

using the media may require the ‘‘looking’’ instructor to consider

not only the practical integration of the tool into course goals,

but also (and more importantly) the theoretical framework for

implementing the technology as a learning resource Some have

suggested that the latter has drawn little attention to date from

either instructors or researchers (Merchant, 2012) The notion of

bringing more scholarship into this area will be one of the research

recommendations

Selwyn (2010)argued that three interrelated concepts should

motivate the use of social media in higher education: the

appar-ently changing nature of the student who comes to the university

highly connected, collective, and creative; the changing

relation-ship that today’s university learner has with knowledge

consump-tion, knowledge construcconsump-tion, and formal education; the

de-emphasis of institutionally provided learning and emergence of

‘‘user-driven’’ education

Similarly,McLoughlin and Lee (2010)commented on the

affor-dances and principles of social software as a pedagogical choice

They argued that one of social constructivism’s (Vygotsky, 1978)

foremost tenet’s can be applied to teaching with social media That

is, learning is conversational in nature including dialogue and

shared activity In addition, social networks can become the

impe-tus for inquiry-based approaches and collaboration The

commen-tators also posited that social software applications promote active

participation, learner self-direction, and personal meaning

construction

In line with social constructivism, situated learning theory

ap-pears to support SNSs in the classroom (Hung & Yuen, 2010) The

theory views learning as set in a participatory social context

According toLave and Wenger (1991), situated learning extends

the model of knowledge construction by proposing that learning

is situated in a specific context and embedded in a particular social

and physical environment The use of social media to enhance the

‘‘community of practice’’ in the college classroom makes for a

log-ical argument.Hung and Yuen (2010)contend that a sense of

com-munity is an essential element for successful e-learning

4.2 The argument from a philosophical perspective

Others would argue for social media use from a more

philo-sophical perspective (Anderson, 2007;Brown & Duguid, 2002)

So-cial media enables whatEijkman (2008)termed ‘‘non-foundational

network-centric learning spaces.’’ He contended that higher

educa-tion’s approach to using Web 2.0 architecture needed to

funda-mentally change from its implementation of Web 1.0 Instead of

the information-focused paradigm (foundationalist), Web 2.0

afforded knowledge construction that was vested in globally

di-verse networks of learning Optimum use of social media meant

linking the architecture of participation to another architecture

built on non-foundational acculturation (Eijkman, 2008)

4.3 Antecedent cautions

The argument is not one-sided, however Some scholars posit

that social media should not be adopted just because of availability

or affordances Already in the early 1980’s, Clark (1983) argued

that no available research supported any use of media His

argu-ment included the often quoted ‘‘grocery truck’’ analogy about

claiming the delivery vehicle (media) as the cause for student

achievement More recentlyFriesen and Lowe (2011)questioned

the ability of social media to foster debate and disagreement, a

cru-cial component of learning Like others, they made the argument

that social networks were not developed for formal education To

adopt their use simply because they were so readily available was to employ a tool for a task for which it may be unsuitable Cau-tioning against the ‘‘over-privileging’’ of SNSs,Madge, Meek, Wel-lens, and Hooley (2009) concluded that academic adoption of social media should involve a study of ownership and boundaries

5 Findings

5.1 Affordances and drawbacks

Researchers have been examining the role that social media plays in the higher education classroom Some of the work has highlighted the affective outcomes of SNS integration A few stud-ies investigated learning outcomes and student achievement in relationship to the educational use of social media in college courses While the majority of studies reported positive affor-dances, there was evidence of drawbacks as well This section sum-marizes key findings from the studies

King, Greianus, Carbonaro, Drummond, and Patterson (2009)

described the development of an interprofessional team course in the healthcare field showing how to integrate social networking Recognizing the need for future healthcare providers to adopt a community of practice paradigm, the researchers found that the integration of an educationally structured social networking envi-ronment facilitated growth toward the concept of effective com-munication One recommendation that surfaced was the suggestion that the institutional website have a more intuitive for-mat similar to the commercial applications such as MySpace Recently,Sadaf, Newby, and Ertmer (2012)studied pre-service teachers’ beliefs about their intent to use Web 2.0 technology in their future classrooms The 12 participants in the exploratory qualitative study (i.e., interviews, reflections) were first-year stu-dents in a teacher education program at a large Midwestern uni-versity In addition to the 12 initial participants, 190 students completed an open-ended survey The results showed that a majority (51%) were committed to Web 2.0 technology as an instructional tool primarily because it may increase student engagement The pre-service teachers recognized that although they were comfortable users of the technology, they would need guidance as how to implement its effective use in the classroom Other students did not perceive the affordances and offered a different perspective Using a web-based questionnaire and stu-dent interviews from four universities,Jones, Blackey, Fitzgibbon,

& Chew (2010)found a large distinction in student perceptions regarding technology use in the personal space versus the learning space While more than 70% of the students reported having a so-cial networking account, they also indicated that they rarely used social media for educational purposes Three of the five themes that emerged in the interviews may explain the reasons for the ‘‘di-vide.’’ (a) The students tended to separate their social life (pleasur-able) from their learning (painful); (b) concerns arose about the difficulty in identifying original sources of ideas that were posted (concern for copyright infringement); and (c) the students were not keen on information overload or the added time constraints that technology may bring

Brady, Holcomb, and Smith (2010)studied the use of Ning in online graduate courses at North Carolina State University A con-venience sample of students (N = 50) from three different courses were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the SNS for e-learning benefits Seventy percent reported agreement with the notion that Ning made more communication possible between peers than a comparable face-to-face class Nearly the same amount (82%) indicated that Ning helped communication outside

of the class as well Most users (74%) agreed that Ning allowed them to reflect and comment on other’s work more effectively than may have occurred in a face-to-face class

By conducting a small-scale survey of faculty and students at a

mid-size southern university (public),Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb,

Herman, and Witty (2010)compared the uses of Facebook between

the two groups They reported that 95% of the students surveyed

compared to 73% of the faculty had Facebook accounts Of all the

uses identified (e.g., communications with friends, career

network-ing), communication regarding coursework was least on the list

The faculty were less likely to support Facebook as an instructional

tool (v2= 17.464, p < 001)

Additional faculty perceptions were studied byAjjan and

Hart-shorne (2008)in which they collected survey data from 136 faculty

members at a large university in southeast United States to

inves-tigate faculty’s awareness of technologies and benefits of adopting

Web 2.0 tools for the classroom Social networks were viewed as a

useful tool for improving student satisfaction (32%) and increasing

student to student interaction (56%) However, only 24% of the

fac-ulty used SNSs in their courses In examining the factors that

pre-dicted potential use, the researchers discovered that attitudes and

perceived behavior control strongly influenced adoption Ease of

use, usefulness, and compatibility were the primary determinants

of attitudes with self-efficacy the sole significant predictor for

behavior control One of the conclusions suggested that training

in the integration of technology was an important mechanism in

influencing decisions by faculty to utilize them in class

Surveying a large group (N = 2368) of students from a Northeast

college,Junco (2012)investigated the relationship between type of

and frequency of Facebook use and student engagement Prior

re-search had shown a positive relationship between use and

engage-ment (Heiberger & Harper, 2008) One ofJunco’s (2012)outcome

variables for student engagement was time spent preparing for

class He found that Facebook time and Facebook activity were

mildly, but significantly (p < 001) predictive of classroom

prepara-tion time (1.6%, 1.7%, explained variance, respectively) While a

sig-nificant finding statistically, the relationship seemed to provide

little in terms of practical importance especially since the direction

of the effect could not be determined

A few studies have shown that time spent on social networking

sites can negatively impact student achievement.Paul, Baker, and

Cochran (2012)examined a number of predictors often shown to

influence student achievement and included time spent on SNSs

to model behaviors Business students (N = 340) at a large state

university were surveyed with an instrument developed from

questions used previously in research as well the authors’ own

per-sonal experiences In their final structural equation model, the

researchers found a small, but significant negative relationship

(r = 119, p = 048) between time spent on an SNS and academic

performance as measured by course grades and cumulative GPA

Kirschner and Karpinski (2010)reported a negative relationship

between Facebook use and GPA Quantitative data showed that

there were mean differences between the GPAs of users

(M = 3.06) and nonusers (M = 3.82) Thirty-five of the 219

partici-pants provided qualitative data by stating their reasons for the

im-pact of Facebook on their performance Those suggesting that

Facebook had a negative impact had comments about distraction

or poor time-management skills (as observed in less time

study-ing) The researchers were cautious about implying a causal

rela-tionship as the study design did not permit such an implication

Rather they concluded that the findings may show that activities

done in parallel (i.e., multitasking) were important factors to

explore

Motivated to replicate findings of the negative relationship of

Facebook use and GPA,Pasek, More, and Hargittai (2009)found

in-stead mixed results They used three existing data sets containing

the variables needed for study In the largest group (N = 1049), a

representative sample of first-year students at the University of

Illinois – Chicago, there was no statistically significant result

(r = 010, p = 746) when no variables were controlled On the other hand, the data set from the smallest group (N = 303) from the National Annenberg Survey of Youth, showed a reliable negative relationship (r = 148, p = 010) The third data set (a follow-up

to the NASY) reported a positive relationship between Facebook use and academic performance (r = 122, p = 002) The researchers concluded that there was more evidence to support a positive cor-relation between Facebook use and grades

5.2 SNSs as course management systems

Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang, and Liu (2011) explored Facebook’s capabilities as a substitute for or addition to a learning manage-ment system Two groups of course participants (N = 14, graduate;

N = 14, undergraduate) enrolled at a teacher education institute in Singapore completed course-end surveys related to Facebook use

in their respective class work Reporting averages of Likert-type data, the researchers indicated that overall, participants viewed Facebook as a successful LMS for the course (M = 3.9, out of 5-point scale) although a high standard deviation value for the graduate students suggested there was less general agreement among that group A limitation of Facebook as a LMS substitute was explained

in that it did not support direct uploads of resources in typical course formats such as a pdf document or PowerPoint presentation (i.e., ppt)

Similarly,Schroeder and Greenbowe (2009)studied the effects

of introducing Facebook as the course communication tool versus

a learning management system (i.e., WebCT) The posts of 128 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory inorganic chemistry lab at Iowa State University were examined at the end

of the semester Even though only 41% of the students enrolled

in the Facebook group for the course, the number of discussion posts was nearly four times (67 versus 17) those in the WebCT

for-um The researchers noted that the Facebook group’s activity was fairly consistent throughout the semester and that communication patterns were more complex They surmised that from simply a standpoint of access, Facebook usage for personal reasons could explain the differences in post quantity and quality

5.3 Results from specific SNSs

5.3.1 Facebook Facebook has been more widely investigated than most SNSs as

an instructional tool in the college classroom.Irwin, Ball, Desbrow, and Leveritt (2012)studied the use of Facebook pages within four specific university courses Based on student perceptions, the find-ings showed that many course participants (N = 135, 78%) felt ini-tially that Facebook could be an effective learning tool Among the top responses, increased interaction, participation in course discus-sions, and posted lecture notes or assessments were chosen as anticipated benefits However, in post-course surveys, only half

of the students felt that the Facebook inclusion actually assisted their learning The researchers suggested one reason for the medi-ocre perception was that the instructors were inconsistent in their integration attempts

Ophus and Abbitt (2009)reported similar findings as far as stu-dents’ perceptions of Facebook utility Students (N = 100) in a sur-vey biology course felt that communication with other students (95.5%), access to notes and materials (86.3%), and schedule views (82.8%) were likely outcomes Interestingly, they anticipated that less likely activities were online discussions that included the instructor (64.3%) and general communication with the instructor (56.4%)

Finding little research on the types of discourse activated be-tween instructor and learner,Rambe (2012)used Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to study Facebook posts during a course taught at a

South African university The posts revealed that more participants

were communicating administrative or formal type posts Fewer

‘‘horizontal’’ posts or ‘‘liberating’’ communication was evident

The posts also showed a superficial engagement regarding theory

and exposed unsophisticated study skills Two implications were

derived by the researcher Instructors should involve students in

critical engagement rather than allow them to passively receive

teacher-generated content Weak study skills and an over-reliance

on the instructor can be overcome by developing a community of

learners modeled in Facebook

McCarthy (2010)suggested that Facebook was the ideal host

site for a blended learning environment In a first-year elective

course for 120 architecture students, 95% of participants agreed

that the inclusion of Facebook helped them to develop peer

rela-tionships Most (92%) appreciated the interactive discussions with

peers in the virtual classroom The researcher also found an

in-crease in course engagement particularly with an assessment task

as indicated by the Facebook activity logs

Some researchers have waved the yellow caution flag.Madge

et al (2009)recognized the importance of Facebook for social

net-working, but cautioned over-privileging the site when it comes to

actual pedagogical purposes As pervasive as it may be (over 95%

saturation for British college students), Facebook usage as a

teach-ing tool did not have strong support among the 213 British

stu-dents sampled (<10%) The stustu-dents’ preferences showed that

Facebook was important for social reasons or potentially for

infor-mal learning purposes (46%)

In a survey study of 300 randomly chosen students at the

Uni-versiti Sains Malaysia,Kabilan, Ahmad, and Abidin (2010) found

that the 74% students agreed that Facebook inculcated a more

po-sitive attitude towards learning English as a second language A

similar percentage (72%) of the respondents felt that the use of

so-cial networking motivated them to communicate in English Of

those who were not as positive about Facebook use, the most often

reported reason for the negative feelings was a recognition that the

use simply had not helped improve English acumen The

research-ers concluded that the integration of Facebook as an education

pro-ject should require language instructors to align course obpro-jectives

and outcomes in a meaningful way

5.3.2 Blogs

The weblog or blog has high visibility and popularity in the

world of social media networks perhaps explaining its prominence

in research investigations In 2010, Sim and Hew conducted an

extensive review of empirical research on the use of weblogs in

higher education settings They found that most of studies relied

on self-reported data (e.g., surveys, interviews) or blog content

analysis upon which to draw conclusions The researchers

uncov-ered six major uses of blogs: (a) a learning journal for gathering

or reporting course-related information, (b) a record of daily

expe-riences that disclose personal information, (c) an outlet for

expressing emotions and feelings, (d) a communication tool for

so-cial interaction with other people, (e) an assessment tool for peer

evaluation, and (f) a task management tool for posting

assign-ments The authors also summarized the affective outcomes

re-ported by the research articles (N = 24) in the review Most

students agreed with the idea that blogs were easy to use and

should be used more as a learning tool particularly for formative

purposes Negative perceptions included those who disliked

writ-ing, had a concern for privacy issues, and were unfamiliar with

the technology

SinceSim & Hew’s review (2010), recent work has continued to

explore blogs as an educational tool in the higher education class

Deng and Yuen (2011)surveyed 37 student teachers in Hong Kong

about their experiences with the integration of a weblog during

their practicum The study sought to build a framework for the

educational affordances of blogs As anticipated, the researchers found that blogs supported self-expression and self-reflection, as well as social interaction and reflective dialogue A surprising re-sult showed that blog-reading added an important dimension to the framework By reading each other’s blogs, the student teachers were sustaining the sense of togetherness and reflecting on their own practice Also working with pre-service teachers’ attitudes,

Top (2012)studied the teachers’ sense of community in courses that included blogging Fifty students from a Turkish university re-sponded to a survey that indicated they had moderate feelings about sense of community Perceived learning was found to have

a stronger relationship to the sense of community The study was not testing for relationships between blogging and sense of com-munity per se, so conclusions regarding the connection were more implied than real

Huang, Huang, and Yu (2011)investigated the effects of incor-porating a blog into a sophomore course titled ‘‘Data Structure’’

at a large Taiwanese university In the quasi-experimental design, two groups of students (N = 57, experimental; N = 48, control) were randomly assigned to either a blog-assisted cooperative activity or the same activity in a face-to-face format The results from the questionnaires showed differences between the perceptions of each group The experimental group perceived the cooperative activity as more positive (t(1, 113) = 2.622, p < 01) The same group also agreed more often (47% versus 41%) that they did not feel pressure from their peers when sharing their work Even more (79%) of the blog group agreed that they did not feel pressure to present their work A possible confound for the differences may

be found in the asynchronous learning environment of the blog group

Deed and Edwards (2011)examined the behaviors and cogni-tive strategies of 400 education students at Liverpool Hope Univer-sity who were involved in an unrestricted blog (i.e., no input or oversight by the instructor during discussion) Data included stu-dent responses to a survey and a sample (N = 19) of blog tran-scripts The researchers used a categorization scheme based on Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy to analyze student posts Overall post frequency by category percentages were fairly uniform (remem-bering, 18%; understanding, 17%; applying 12%; analyzing, 26%, evaluating, 20%; creating, 7%) The authors concluded that the stu-dents in general completed the assigned task (a five-minute pre-sentation based on group analysis of a contemporary education theme) using an unrestricted blog efficiently but not vigorously More posts tended to be perfunctory or personal opinion and lacked critical construction of knowledge However, the posts deemed higher level suggested that unrestricted blogging could support active learning and the building of a common knowledge base

5.3.3 Twitter

In one of the few experimental studies specifically studying the effects of social media on student engagement and achievement,

Junco, Heiberger, and Loken (2011)looked for differences in mean engagement scores (from the National Survey of Student Engage-ment) and average semester GPA across groups A sample of 125 pre-health majors (70 in the experimental group) participated in the same seminar course with the experimental group using Twit-ter for ‘‘educationally relevant activities’’ (e.g., book discussion, class reminders, low-stress means of asking questions, conversa-tions that could continue after class) The change in student engagement scores was significantly higher in the Twitter sections (p < 018) Semester GPAs were also significantly higher for the Twitter group (p = 037) The researchers saw implications for leveraging Twitter as a tool for the classroom in line with Chicker-ing and Gamson’s general principles (1987) Mainly, (a) Twitter im-proved contact between instructor and student; (b) Twitter

promoted active learning; (c) Twitter provided an avenue for

prompt feedback; and (d) Twitter maximized time on task A

cau-tion regarding the results has to do with the achievement variable

Using semester GPA as a measure for student performance in the

course was a confound

Borau, Ullrich, Feng, and Shen (2009) described their

experi-ences with using Twitter as a training tool for communication

and cultural competence in the English as a Foreign Language

(EFL) blended environment Eighty-two students at Shanghai Jiao

Tong Distance College registered for Twitter accounts (none had

experience with Twitter) and then ‘‘followed’’ classmates and

instructors The instructors viewed Twitter as a supplementary

practice tool well equipped to sustain ‘‘short turns’’ (i.e., one or

two thoughts) The authors found that 32% of the students spent

less than 1 min writing a Twitter update (‘‘tweet’’) and another

37% needed between 1 and 2 min to create or respond

substantiat-ing their hope of the quick turnaround In a post-course survey,

70% of the students agreed that Twitter was effective in developing

their English skills One of Twitter’s capabilities as a research tool

was highlighted The dataset containing all tweets, frequency data,

and time spent was readily available for analysis The researchers

noted the value of the large dataset commending it to other

inter-ested investigators by posting it on a data visualization website by

IBM (http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com)

Another pair of researchers described their integration of

Twit-ter into an online instructional design and technology course (

Dun-lap & Lowenthal, 2009) The instructors wanted to move beyond

the scope and structure of course management systems (CMSs)

to a ‘‘just-in-time’’ interactive community of social learning

Acknowledging that the primary benefit of Twitter was the

enhancement of social presence, the researchers also indicated

several other advantages of Twitter over a CMS: (a) addressed

is-sues in a timely manner, (b) concise writing, (c) connecting with

a professional community of practice, (d) supported informal

learning, and (e) writing for an audience Possible drawbacks of

Twitter use included a concern for time, cost, addiction, and bad

grammar encouragement due to the character limitation of tweets

5.4 Rich data source

Research investigators have recognized that social network

sites are a rich source of behavioral data With permissions in

place, physically and digitally, researchers can sift and sort through

a myriad of posts, pokes, and tweets in order to examine such

vari-ables as content, attitudes, and understanding In some cases,

auto-mated collection techniques can capture large datasets containing

profile updates, linkages, and usage trends which are then able to

be explored (Borau et al., 2009)

6 Limitations and research agenda

6.1 Limitations

The results of this review of the literature on social media in the

higher education classroom were limited by a number of factors

The first was the inherent bias introduced to the study by virtue

of the methodology chosen and criteria identified I purposefully

limited search words to the 10 key terms that became the search

engine entries The focus, therefore, was confined to the most

pop-ular and prevalent social media applications Undoubtedly, some

studies were excluded because they involved SNSs other than

Facebook or Twitter Not measured evidence but simply anecdotal

observations results from the Google Scholar searches often picked

up these extraneous studies, and the number of them seemed low

Another factor that limited the results of the review was the

for-mulation of a definition for social media While authors suggested

or proposed operational definitions for the term, there appeared

to be no standard The difficulty stemmed from the global, expan-sive umbrella that social media covered While some researchers used a narrower view of the term (a perspective taken here), others approached the concept from a broader viewpoint Making the for-mulation even more challenging today are the ever-evolving struc-ture and capabilities of social media Has social media become one

of those implicit terms that is difficult to categorize but still collo-quially understood?

A final limiting factor was the topic itself and the available re-search Empirical studies in this area were thin by my estimation

It was interesting to find that numerous articles were available in the popular press about the phenomenon, but the number of re-search studies in peer-reviewed journals was relatively few A met-ric that was not included in this review was a reporting of the number of ‘‘hits’’ received for a particular key word That number

is certainly arbitrary and potentially misleading and so avoided The results from the empirical studies in this review had some common limitations First, convenience sampling often made gen-eralizability problematic A shared, but significant challenge to having convenient samples (i.e., students in a course or faculty in

an institution) was the ability to make inferences about popula-tions As a result, the reader was left to extrapolate potential for different contexts Second, measurement instruments most often relied on self-reported data While surveys and questionnaires can be effective data sources (Chan, 2009), they are more often ci-ted as flawed proxies for behavioral measures (Carrell & Willming-ton, 1996) For example, in course-end surveys taken by students, expectation bias or attention bias may be evident Last, descriptive designs, like convenience sampling, limited their generalization Most of the studies were reporting the social media intervention

or treatment as it occurred in specific contexts without a control Hence, conclusions based on the findings could not distinguish other factors which may have affected results

6.2 Research agenda

Knowing the limitations of past research should help to plan for future investigations It is a rare study that suggests further explo-ration in a particular area is not warranted This review is not one

of those exceptions Indeed, almost every study in the review pro-posed some motivational questions to advance what is known about social media’s role in the higher education class I concur with the authors who viewed this research venue as only the tip

of the iceberg and endorse many of their proposals A few broad themes are summarized in the next paragraphs

One of the broad themes of a proposed research agenda incor-porates aspects of the implied promise that social media has been hailed as offering As social media tools become more integral to the college classroom, questions to consider include the following: Does the ubiquity of social media alone warrant its consideration

as an educational tool? Can social networking sites that are by de-sign commercial products support learners in an educational envi-ronment? What does the adoption of an SNS mean from an instructional design perspective, and what determinants are prior-ities when making decisions about integration? How important are the design and functionality of social media in relation to the types

of curricular activities planned?

An early decision as far as scope of this review led to more stud-ies being included but may have confounded findings The decision was to remain agnostic about the potential differences in context

In other words, I was not concerned about showing effects of an on-line class versus a face-to-face group versus a hybrid combina-tion of the two formats Much work has focused on the effects of on-line versus face-to-face education Interestingly, a large body

of research has shown that the differences in terms of student

outcomes are not evident In his comprehensive bibliography of

the literature,Russell (1999)concluded that the mode of delivery

was not a predictor of student outcomes as long as materials and

methodology were held constant That is not to say that all studies

found no differences, but the overwhelming majority reported the

no significant difference finding What made the results even more

compelling was the traditional challenge for studies reporting no

differences to be published

Contrary to Russell’s conclusion, a report from the United States

Department of Education stated that on-line students were on

average performing better than their counterparts in the real

class-room (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2010) The report

was the culmination of a meta-analysis of over 1000 empirical

studies However, only 45 studies eventually met the stringent

experimental criteria established by Department researchers those

being (a) studies with random-assignment or controlled

quasi-experimental designs, (b) studies that examined measured,

objec-tive outcomes of student learning while discarding those that

looked at affective or perception variables, and (c) studies of truly

Web-based instruction eliminating those that used technology as a

secondary instructional tool Overall, the researchers concluded

that learning outcomes for students who were engaged in on-line

instruction were on average statistically better (effect size of

+.20, ‘‘small’’ effect by Cohen’s standard) than the outcomes for

students who experienced face-to-face learning The researchers

were careful to interpret the finding as conditional Other

dimen-sions were typically involved such as amount of time spent on

work or additional collaboration afforded by media

While not necessarily endorsing their criteria, it should be

emphasized that the US Department of Education has adopted

strict standards for evaluation research which many refer to as

the ‘‘gold standard’’ (Slavin, 2008) Those standards are based on

three factors: the study design (randomized controlled trials and

quasi-experimental comparison groups), group equivalence, and

group attrition The standards are used to review published

re-search in order to determine eligibility for inclusion on the What

Works Clearinghouse (http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc), a website

hosted by the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of

the US Department of Education The essential characteristic of

‘‘effective’’ studies is that they focus on a school-based

interven-tion such as the use of social media in the classroom

Others have taken a more foundational perspective Picking up

Windschitl’s (1998)mantle,Greenhow, Robelia, and Hughes (2009)

outlined a research agenda for scholarship in the area of Web 2.0

and learning They suggested that two overarching themes emerged

from their analysis of warranted future direction One was the notion

of the learner’s participation as evidenced by interconnections,

con-tent creation and remixing, and interconnections Expanding this

re-search theme meant inquiries into the learner’s participation

attitudes and creative acts as well as issues related to equity and

ac-cess in and out of the classroom Their contention was that learning

was fundamentally changing due in part to Web 2.0 technologies A

sampling of their ideas follows: (a) How and why do learners

partic-ipate and create content in digital learning spaces? (b) How do

learn-ers engage with othlearn-ers and interconnect during creation and

sharing? (c) How do learners’ activities suggest new practices for

the teacher in terms of pedagogy, curriculum, and policy?

The second broad theme was characterized as the learner’s

identity formation.Greenhow et al (2009)proposed that today’s

student experimented with different online identities because of

the new digital tools at hand (e.g., role-playing sites, virtual worlds,

online games) They argued that this development represented a

fundamental shift Research should focus on the benefits and

chal-lenges (including risks) associated with students developing their

identity in the virtual world Traditional structures such as family,

school, or church are losing their influence As a result, the

researchers proposed questions such as the following: What is the nature of the digital dossier for the learner? What kinds of scaf-folding should educators provide in the development process? What types of modeling and assessment are best for facilitating competencies in the digital landscape?

Similarly,Crook (2008)advanced a broader view by considering whether it may be better to explore Web 2.0 ‘‘mentality’’ rather than Web 2.0 ‘‘technology.’’ That is, he argued that Web 2.0 tech-nology was only symptomatic of an already present disposition to-ward practices common in communication today Today’s cultural norms emphasize participation, collaboration, and self-confident creativity along with informality and irreverence he contended Research should concentrate in defining and exploring Web 2.0 mentality in order to find explanations for people’s motives for using Web 2.0 technology in educational settings

7 Conclusion

Education likes to explore emerging technologies as new or im-proved tools to enhance instruction and learning Social media has emerged as a highly useful personal communication technology Can the same affordances of social networking sites that support individual level use, commend the integration of SNSs into the higher education class? The jury is still out In fact, the trial is just beginning as researchers begin to gather evidence of social media’s position in the technology marketplace of the college classroom Although the infrastructure to support social media’s presence exists in most universities today, instructors have been slow in adopting the tool as an educational one Some, of course, are not willing to accept the tool carte blanche preferring theoretical or pragmatic reasons for an implementation Adoptive instructors are likely in an experimental stage of implementation as they look for alignment between course activities and the SNS applications (Bennett, Bishop, Dalgarno, Waycott, & Kennedy, 2012) That same challenge applies to any decision related to educational technology and its place in the curriculum

This review has raised more questions than it has answered A number of reasons may explain the lack of evidence to support

an authoritative yes, no, or it depends to the question, Is social media

an efficient and effective software solution for the higher education classroom? One reason is that social networking is a relatively re-cent arrival, and researchers have now begun in earnest a thought-ful research agenda Certainly social media has been prevalent on the college campus, but not until recently has its viability as a learning medium been considered by a growing number of educa-tors Another reason that may explain the paucity of studies is that SNS integration is a choice made at the instructor level rather than

an institutional decision As a result, the implementation may be more of a trial that lends itself to action research and ultimately

to more questions

Perhaps the larger question, though, is one of direction Does so-cial media’s presence in the college classroom reflect a growing interest in the technology as an educational tool, or does it repre-sent a fundamental shift in the way students learn (Greenhow

et al., 2009)? While the notion sounds fundamentally philosophi-cal, I believe the proposition is an empirical one

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