The use of facebook on group collaboration among fast track sophomores in felte ulis vnu perception and implication

The participants, fast-track sophomores from Faculty of English Language Teaching Education FELTE, University of Languages and International Studies VNU, are studied in two main aspects

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

THE USE OF FACEBOOK ON GROUP

COLLABORATION AMONG FAST – TRACK SOPHOMORES IN FELTE, ULIS, VNU:

PERCEPTION AND IMPLICATION

Supervisor: Ms Đặng Anh Thư (M.A) Student: Trần Minh Hằng

Course: QH2012.F1.E2

HÀ NỘI - 2016

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

VIỆC SỬ DỤNG FACEBOOK CHO CỘNG TÁC

NHÓM CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM 2 HỆ CHẤT LƯỢNG CAO KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH:

ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I hereby state that I: Trần Minh Hằng (QH2012.F.1.E2), being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date

May 4, 2016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, it is my great honor to be supervised by Ms Đặng Anh Thư, whom I would like to express my deepest sense of gratitude for her support and guidance all the time Without her careful supervision, this paper could not be accomplished

In addition, I deeply appreciate the enthusiastic participation of 53 year students from three fast-track classes (14E1, 14E2 & 14E20) Thank you so much for your responsible collaboration

second-Moreover, my thanks go to 3 ICT teachers, who were so nice and to accepting my interview and provide me information Besides, I would like to say thank you to my sisters and friend for their tremendous help during the research process so that I have more effort to finish

Last but not least, my heart comes to my parents, who give me their wholehearted support and encouragement day by day to help me accomplish this paper

ABSTRACT

The 21st century has opened a new and state-of-the-art technology period to human beings Among such modern products, Facebook, one of the social networks, has dramatically changed people’s lives and brought us closer than ever However, people seem to normally consider Facebook as a tool for entertainment, not for any educational purpose As there have been few studies on this aspect, this paper was conducted to explore the use of Facebook for group collaboration among fast-track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU This study is basically aimed at giving a reference for students as well as course designers Quantitative research was applied with a structured questionnaire and a semi-structure interview to investigate the use

of Facebook for group collaboration The participants, fast-track sophomores from Faculty of English Language Teaching Education (FELTE), University of Languages and International Studies (VNU), are studied in two main aspects namely group activities on Facebook; the pros and cons of using Facebook for group work The result showed that fast-track sophomores often collaborated on Facebook such as discussing assignments, sharing opinions/ ideas with each other, etc They found that it was convenient to use Facebook for group work as it was so popular and every member owned one, which made it become the common tool for group work However, Facebook Messenger could be a big obstacle for members to follow the discussion Besides, disobeyed members who were not on time for group discussion Therefore, the solution has been come up with by ICT teachers such as note takers, punishment for late members or other applications usage, etc

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study 1

1.2 Research questions 2

1.3 Significance of the study 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Thesis structure 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Group collaboration 5

2.1.1 Definition of group collaboration 5

2.1.2 Types of group collaboration 6

2.1.3 The pros and cons of group collaboration 7

2.2 Facebook 9

2.2.1 The development of Social Networking Sites (SNS) and its influence on education 9

2.2.2 The definition of Facebook 11

2.2.3 Functions of Facebook 11

2.2.4 The popularity of Facebook in the world and Vietnam in the recent decade 13 2.2.5 The effect of Facebook on academic learning around the world and in Vietnam 14

2.3 The influence of Facebook on group collaboration 15

2.4 Related studies on collaboration and the use of Facebook 16

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Selection of subjects 18

3.2 Research instruments 18

3.3 Procedure of data collection 19

3.3.1 Data collection instruments 19

3.3.1.1 Structured questionnaire 19

3.3.1.2 Semi-structured interview 19

3.3.2 Construction of data collection instrument 20

3.4 Data collection procedure 24

3.4.1 The questionnaire 24

3.4.2 The semi-structured interview 24

3.5 Procedure of data analysis 25

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISSCUSSIONS 26

4.1 Summary of findings 26

4.1.1 Background of fast-track second-year students 26

4.1.2 Research question 1: How is Facebook often used by fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU? 27

4.1.3 Research question 2: To what extent does Facebook influence on group collaboration as reported by fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU? 28

4.1.4 Research question 3: What are the obstacles when using Facebook for group work collaboration as reported by fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU? 30

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 42

5.1 Major findings of the study 42

5.2 Pedagogical implications 42

5.3 Limitations of the study 51

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 51

LIST OF REFERENCES 52

APPENDICES 58

APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS 58

APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS 65

APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION AND NOTES 78

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Construction of data instrument 20

Table 2: The length of using Facebook, perceived by fast-track sophomores 26

Table 3: Suggested assessment form for group collaboration 50

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The numbers of Facebook users (2010-2018) 10

Figure 2: The layout of Facebook in 2004 11

Figure 3: The layout of Facebook nowadays 12

Figure 4: The number of monthly active users of some social networks 12

Figure 5: Leading social network worldwide (2015), ranked by number of active users 13

Figure 6: Number of Facebook users in Vietnam (2011-2015) 13

Figure 7: The information about Vietnamese users (October, 2012) 14

Figure 8: Time for Facebook, perceived by fast-track sophomores 27

Figure 9: Common activities on Facebook, perceived by fast-track sophomores 27

Figure 10: Facebook activities on group collaboration, perceived by fast-track sophomores 28

Figure 11: Advantages of using Facebook for group collaboration perceived by students 31

Figure 12: Disadvantages of using Facebook for group collaboration perceived by students 36

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

There has been a bombard of social networking into every single aspect of our lives all over the world In the early 2014, according to Pew Research Center reported in ―Social Networking Fact Sheet‖, the number of online adults use social media is 74% Moreover, in another research named ―The Demographics of Social Media Users - 2012‖ by Pew Research Center, 67% of social media use Facebook every day with the age from 18 to 29 Our study’s participants are second-year students, who are at that age With such great interaction of Facebook, the application for academic purposes is dramatically potential Facebook enables the learners to contact their peers or exchange information, which frequently happens in group collaboration As a result, the use of Facebook for group collaboration is needed to be investigated

Besides, group work is considered to be a more effective tool than individual learning in terms of efficiency (David & Bass, 1993) Helen Keller- a famous American author, political activist and lecturer said ―Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much‖ Or there is one famous idiom that ―two heads are better than one‖, which means people working have more opportunity of coming up with the solution more quickly than one Mabrouk (n.d, as cited in Felder & Brent, n.d.) suggested that it may boost the understanding of materials, lessen the pressure

or create a good relationship with other teammates Consequently, group work can

be applied both inside and outside class As a fast-track student in ULIS, I myself realize the importance of group collaboration for effective learning Most of the assignments or projects are taken under the form of group work because this process will support the students both in academic skills and other soft skills

Consequently, group collaboration has been widely concerned and discussed

by many scholars around the world This is a not new topic so various aspects of group collaboration has been exploited Digital strategies for group collaboration

was given but the author only mentioned Web 2.0 or Google doc as a means (Atkins, n.d.) Burke (n.d) also suggested some strategies for group collaboration in

a team; however, only in class activities Besides, with the global spread of Facebook among the youth, it has been investigated in the area of academic aspect O’Brien (2011) studied the relationship between the use of Facebook and academic performance, specifically GPA Furthermore, in the context of ULIS, VNU, very few studies about these problems have been conducted

From my own experience as a fast- track student, group collaboration is one

of the most important parts in our course at school As a group, we contact a lot via many ways, but notably Facebook However, the parents often assumes that we use Facebook just for social entertainment, not for academic purposes As a result, I would like to find out more about the use of Facebook among fast-track sophomores

1.2 Research questions

Firstly, the present study aims at identifying the most frequent purposes of using Facebook Afterwards, obstacles will be defined during group collaboration with the use of Facebook Last but not least, further suggestions and implications are suggested by ICT teachers at the Faculty of English Language Teaching (FELTE), University of Language and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU) with the hope of improving the effectiveness of group collaboration for fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU

These afore-mentioned aims are specified into the three following research questions:

1 How is Facebook often used by fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU?

2 To what extent does Facebook influence on group collaboration as

reported by fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU?

3 What are the obstacles when using Facebook for group work collaboration

as reported by fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU?

1.3 Significance of the study

This research is conducted because of three main reasons In the first place, it

is admitted that there are not many studies or articles about the use of Facebook for academic purposes, particularly among college students Besides, the teaching method needs to change from day to day; therefore, learning via technology or social networking is not a brand-new trend any more This source can be an informative source of ideas for teachers, especially language teachers, to take use of Facebook for their teaching strategies which can be suitable for the students Last but not least, this may serve as a useful and reliable source of literature for related studies about social networking or group collaboration

1.4 Scope of the study

Since group work covers a wide area, this research focuses only on the use of Facebook for out-of-class discussion with the target participants of fast-track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU It refers to online discussion among members

in a group for their assignments, not offline ones This study is considered to be a quantitative one with a number of participants are students from 3 fast-track classes Moreover, the researcher would like to focus on the difficulties when taking part in online discussion via Facebook; hence, the solutions are given by ICT teachers, who are experienced in applying technology in teaching

Chapter 2: Literature review

This includes the explanation of social networking (Facebook), the application of Facebook in Vietnam, particularly in group work and reviews other works

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter consists of the description of research participants, data collection method and data analysis method

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion

In this chapter, research findings will be presented The discussion taken from participants’ interview with an aim to elaborate further on their choices

Chapter 5: Conclusion

Lastly, major findings, pedagogical implications, the limitation and

suggestions for further research will be presented

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Group collaboration

2.1.1 Definition of group collaboration

Group work is a prevailing form of learning toward Vietnamese students in general and an integral part of ULIS students In fact, there are numerous given definitions for group work

According to Oxford dictionary, group work is defined as ―work done by a group in collaboration‖

Doff (1988) makes it more detailed that group work is a process in which

―the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group), all the groups work at the same time.‖

So what is collaboration? Collaboration is ―the action of working with someone to produce something‖ (Oxford dictionary) or to be more specific, it is

―the situation of two or more people working together to create or achieve the same thing‖ (Cambridge dictionary) Harasim, Hiltz, Teles and Turoff (1995) gave a more general definition for collaboration , which is " any activity that in which two or more people work together to create meaning, explore a topic, or improve skills" Besides, from information technology aspect, collaboration is defined as:

A joint effort of multiple individuals or work groups to accomplish a task or project Within an organization, collaboration typically involves the ability

of two or more people to view and contribute to documents or other content over a network (WhatIs Com)

It can be obviously seen that from any point of views, group work or group collaboration is the process in which the learners cooperate with others in a group to achieve the final goals without or little the teacher’s judgment In this type of learning, members contribute equally to the work by sharing ideas, commenting on each other That is when the students work independently from the teacher and learn from themselves as well as their teammates Furthermore, with the previous definitions, group work is considered as group collaboration so that in this study, these two terms are used interchangeably

Group collaboration is clearly a kind of collaborative learning, when the learners cooperate with each other to achieve the aim of the assignment

2.1.2 Types of group collaboration

There are some examples of activities requiring group collaboration suggested by Cornell University:

- ―Stump your partner‖: The process of asking and answering questions related

to the lesson between the learners and the one beside them

- ―Think-pair-share/ Write-pair-share‖: The learner needs to answer some questions after some minutes to present about their ideas for the whole class

- ―Catch-up‖: After a main idea of the lesson, there is a discussion among learners about what they have learnt or some questions are raised to check understanding

- ―Fishbowl debate‖: It is a kind of a debate, which includes participants with different viewpoints The difference here is that students work in groups of three only

- ―Case study‖: Each group is given a case study After the duration of sharing with other group, the instructor will call for a team to present about their investigations and solutions

- ―Team-based learning‖: Students work in groups to complete some tasks or quizzes, especially some assignments requiring problem-solving skills The assessment is for both individual and group work

- ―Group problem solving‖: This kind of learning is applied for classes which the learners are focused and the main target of the lesson The students are given a problem and their task is figuring out the suggestion It requires the learner critical thinking and synthesis mind to solve the problem

In general, according to Johnson, Johnson and Smith (1991, as cited in Davis

& Bass, 1993), there are three types of group collaboration:

● ―Informal learning groups‖ are types of learning for a number of learners, which requires them to use what has learnt to the given task in the length of a lesson

● ―Formal learning groups are teams‖ – where learners work with each other in either short or long time to fulfill the assignment

● ―Study teams are long-term groups‖, which requires the learner much more effort and commitment for the assignments in several months As a result,

the members are unchangeable and it is a need for them to cooperate fully with each other

This study focuses on the online group collaboration; therefore, the formal learning teams and study teams are more suitable to work on

2.1.3 The pros and cons of group collaboration

It is inevitable that collaboration in the group brings many benefits According to assessment policy from University of Wollongong:

Group work, under proper conditions, encourages peer learning and peer support and many studies validate the efficacy of peer learning Under less than ideal conditions, group work can become the vehicle for acrimony, conflict and freeloading It may also impose a host of unexpected stresses on, for example, students with overcrowded schedules living long distances from the University

(University of Wollongong assessment policy, 2002; as cited in Assessing Learning in Australia Universities)

As can be seen that, group work supports the learner in three following aspects:

In terms of learning outcome, group work can create a friendly learning environment where the learners exchange ideas and learn from each other Through such activities, the knowledge is employed from different sources so that there is a comprehensive insurance for the learning quality when working in the group Moreover, when collaborating in a group, if students have any misunderstanding or fail to figure out the topic, they can be realized and correct for each other for correct perception (Gayatan & McEwen, 2007, as cited in Chiong & Jovanovic, 2012)

In terms of skill development, the students are learned implicitly some essential skills by practicing them during the group collaboration process (Assessing Learning in Australia Universities) In fact, to master intellectual skills such as problem-solving skill and critical thinking skill, the learner had better performance when working in a cooperative situation, partially because of the various contribution of knowledge throughout the collaboration As a result, they may adapt more insight (Vygotsky, 1978 as cited in Gockhale, 1995) Besides, the process of exchanging knowledge backward and forward between members about the given situation can promote the problem-solving skill, which facilitates mental

development (Bruner, 1985 as cited in Gockhale 1995) Sharing the same ideas with these two scholars, according to Gockhale’s research (1995), cooperation in learning can boost the learners’ ability of criticizing and solving problems rather than working on their own In fact, it is a chance for them to share ideas, comment

on others’ opinions and even go further to reflect on their own problems Similarly, Ataie, Shah, Nazir (n.d) studied that cooperation gave learners the chance to discuss and argue different opinions in their groups, when their critical thinking is improved Consequently, more knowledge was adapted by the learners by collaborative group activities (Davis & Bass, 1993)

Last but not least, the policy mentioned the decrease in heavy workload when working in a team It is simply understood that a shared assignment with at least another students is less stressed than when working individually

In addition, the benefit of group collaboration to the learners’ comes to social relationship connection During the process of working together, they apparently need to exchange knowledge Johnson and Johnson (as cited in Prince, 2004) agreed that when there was a connection between team members, the development of accord was fostered more than individual learning In fact, when cooperating with others in the duration of an assignment, learners can have a deeper view of their peers’ characteristics, which might not be seen in daily lessons (Burke, 2011)

However, there exist some pitfalls during the collaboration Some better students had a negative view toward group work because they were pulled back in a group with not good peers (Felder & Brent, n.d), which is the ―inequalities of students abilities‖ (Roberts & McInnerney, 2007)

Therefore, some not good students may rely too much on better ones during the cooperative process (Burke, 2011) In such a situation, if the students do not put themselves to the limit, group collaboration is more challenging than its nature (Atkins, 2010)

Besides, time consuming is another inevitable problem (Burke, 2011) Numerous opinions are contributed to the group so that it takes more time to consider suitable ones for the adaptation and improvement Moreover, the time to wait for others to finish is longer than individual work, especially such kind of

online method depends so much on the Internet speech so this trouble is unavoidable

All in all, the benefits of group collaboration are substantial in terms of positive learning environment, skill development, and workload sharing Besides relationship is another important aspect that needs to be mentioned

This idea was also mentioned by Jan van Dijk in the book ―The network society‖ Such terms as ―a connected age‖, ―we live in a connected world‖ or ―a web society‖ seem to be more popular than ever (Dijk, 2012) Stephen Hawkin, a famous English physicist in the university of Cambridge said: ―We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain‖ Every single person does not exist on their own, but link to others like the mechanism of neurons with the support of Internet

Together with the development of the Internet, since 1997 social networking sites (SNS) such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, have been paid a great attention for the society SNSs are defined as a website where people can communicate, exchange knowledge etc… like a group (Cambridge dictionary)

Besides, SNSs are explained more detail:

web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site (Boyd & Ellison)

semi-Sometimes, there is a small difference in use of ―social network site‖ and

―social networking sites‖ Actually, ―social network site‖ is a ―phenomenon‖ and

―social networking sites‖ mentions a ―public discourse‖ but both of them are

compatible (Boyd & Ellison)

In fact, there is a bombard of SNSs users in the 21st century (Figure 1)

Figure 1: The numbers of Facebook users (2010-2018)

It is estimated that only 0.97 billion SNS users in 2010 and that number is predicted to be approximately 2.13 billion around the world in 2016 The speed is increasingly higher

With a high rate of users, SNSs truly affect people’s lives, especially in education A study conducted by researchers from the University of Science & Technology of China and the City University of Hong Kong revealed that SNSs can

be beneficial for both social and academic purpose of college students (Stenger, 2013) First, a chance to create and improve their relationship is great SNSs are truly means of communication to users such as:

updating one’s own profile; commenting on photos or other posts; posting public messages to others or „wall‟ style messages; social network based instant messaging (Nielson,2010, p.169, as cited in Collin, Kitty, Richardson

& Third, 2011 )

The demand of communication of people is growing; therefore, functions that Facebook or Twitter allows people stay connected have been popular among people Besides, the student can have chance to learn some informally educational skills, which are rarely taught at schools:

SNS can facilitate learning and skill development outside formal learning environments by supporting peer-to-peer learning of knowledge and skills, collaboration, diverse cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship (Ito, et.al., 2006; Jenkins, 2007:3, as cited in Collin, Kitty, Richardson & Third, 2011 )

Such kinds of skills are considerably essential for their academic learning but hardly have a classroom or course taught about them With the help of SNS, they can indirectly adapt these skills without realizing that

Moreover, their formally educational purposes such as contacting with other peers, working in a group or managing scheme become more convenient via SNSs

(Stenger, 2013) There is a correlation between SNSs frequency and GPA: the more they get access to SNSs, the higher GPA they achieve (Khan, n.d) Sharing the same idea, Laurillard (n.d) said that:

Learning technologies can support students in the learning forms that contribute to the high-level cognitive skills of scholarship and the practitioner-based skills and knowledge of design-like practice

Moreover, the formal learning among schools can take place, as in the situation of Tasmani’s Sacred Heart School and Pularumpi School on Melville Island thanks to SNS With the use of ―instant messaging and Skype to share information about their cultures and work collaboratively‖, more than other forty other constitutions are connected, for both teachers and students (Mazer, Murphy & Simonds 2007, as cited in Collin, Kitty, Richardson & Third, 2011)

In conclusion, SNSs dramatically contribute to the college students’ lives

2.2.2 The definition of Facebook

As mentioned above, Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites, invented by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004 At that time, he was a Harvard student so Facebook was limited in the scope of Harvard students only, which was a sign of high privacy Actually, it was considered to be Harvard’s SNS and gained some particular prestige out of the limit of its university (Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson & Seymour, 2011)

Figure 2: The layout of Facebook in 2004

As a result, at the early stage of 2005, Facebook has been more open to other groups of users such as high school students, professors and gradually everyone due

to the high demand of people in a networking Until July 2010, the number of users reached 500 million Moreover, it became the most popular site frequently visited around the world (TIME, 2010 as cited in Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson

& Seymour, 2011)

2.2.3 Functions of Facebook

According to Rainie and Wellman (2012), social networking systems include three main characteristics and Facebook is considered to be a typical example to dick deeper

“Personal” (Rainie & Wellman, 2012) mentions the individualism of the

users Facebook allows users to custom their own page by setting profile pictures, covers or post statuses By creating their own ―home‖, people can partly understand about a user’s characteristics, which is a basement for other

“For multiple users” (Rainie & Wellman, 2012) — ―people are interacting

with numerous diverse others‖ One of the most notable features belongs to the communication, which is clearly presented in the layout of Facebook

Figure 3: The layout of Facebook nowadays

As a matter of fact, communication is one of the most outstanding of SNS, especially Facebook According to BI Intelligence’s chart (Figure 2), Facebook is not only the largest social networking, comparing to many other huge opponents such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Viber but also owns the third largest messaging application, which is Facebook Messenger The users can contact and have a talk all the time to whoever that they want to as long as they have a Facebook account It is easy to keep in touch with users’ friends, family no matter how far they are In the near future, ―Facebook could be the dominant force in how we communicate online‖ (Kim, 2015)

Figure 4: The number of monthly active users of some social networks Moreover, with the new releasing of the Hello Application designed by Messaging team, the users now can talk with each other in the form of both audio and video (Tsukayama, n.d) Besides, Facebook group is one of the indispensable tools Within a group, people can post documents, pictures and videos to share with the group mates Sharing information becomes smoother than ever when people in a group

Together with potential development of Messenger application in the near future, Mark Zuckerberg believes that Facebook has "evolved from a single blue app on your phone into a family of apps" (Tsukayama, n.d)

“For multithreaded multitasking” (Rainie & Wellman, 2012) - ―people are

doing several things and they are doing them more or less simultaneously‖ Besides the huge benefits of interactions, users can entertain or learn in various forms on Facebook The events are created so that more people can follow and participate, information from a well-known page is continuously updated Particularly, users can entertain themselves with a range of interactive games such as Happy Farm, Candy Crush and so on

It can be seen that, these diverse functions of Facebook are the most outstanding reasons for its worldwide popularity nowadays

2.2.4 The popularity of Facebook in the world and Vietnam in the recent

decade

There is a higher demand for the use of Facebook around the world According to a report by Statista, Facebook is the social networks that have the most ―active users‖ (1.550 million) (Figure 3)

Figure 5: Leading social network worldwide (2015), ranked by number of active users

In another journal, Asia countries seemed to be potential markets to the Facebook company when it stayed on top among social networks in Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Vietnam ( Edosomwan,Prakasan, Kouame, Watson & Seymour, 2011)

In Vietnam, the number of Facebook users was reported to rise more than 22 times since its first appearance (Moore Cooperation, 2015) (Figure 6)

Figure 6: Number of Facebook users in Vietnam (2011-2015)

As can be seen from the chart, in 5 years from 2011 to 2015, the number of Facebook users increased from 1.4 million to 31.3 million This statistic showed that the growth speed of Facebook in Vietnam was so remarkable

According to another statistics from the company WeAreSocial (2012, October), the majority of users were under 34, especially from 18 to 24 with 54% (the age of the research subject) (Figure 7)

Figure 7: The information about Vietnamese users (October, 2012)

In general, the age range of Facebook users in Vietnam was so various; therefore, Facebook has served numerous types of users

2.2.5 The effect of Facebook on academic learning around the world and in

in revenue with almost no traditional marketing at all (Orlando, 2011)

All these types of social media might be an educational source of knowledge

and so does Facebook However, it is commonly said that Facebook had no use for

the academic purpose In a survey conducted by Charnigo and Ellis (2007), more than half of the participants did not recognize the academic use of Facebook with 54% and for social purposes only Nonetheless, Facebook had various application for academic purposes Therefore, Bosch, Madge and Selwyn (2009, as cited in Gettman & Cortijo, 2015) regarded it as ―an informal academic too‖ to discuss assignments or information about the course Recognizing the potential academic use of Facebook, some teachers integrated it into the formal learning such as establishing intercommunication, supplying the learning materials (Hurt et al., 2012; Irwin et al., 2012; Schroeder & Greenbowe, 2009, as cited in Gettman &

Cortijo, 2015)

On the other hand, in Vietnam, Facebook is generally considered to have negative effects on the students It distracts the learners by chatting with friends,

commenting on others’ statuses or posting photos, which deteriorated the results (Debrot, 2013) Moreover, some school administrations have an intention of limiting the use of Facebook among students to avoid their inappropriate language use on such social network (Van, n.d, as cited in Quoc, 2015) However, there was another opinion that encouraged the use of Facebook, especially the educators to get access with the students and understand their characteristics as well as thinking (Chau, 2012)

In short, Facebook takes a toll on the learners in both positive and negative sides

2.3 The influence of Facebook on group collaboration

With the three above characteristics of Facebook, which are personal, multiple user and multithreaded multitasking, group collaboration is dramatically supported

Personal function helps the students individualize themselves by profile

picture, status or style From these aspects, other teammates can partly understand the characteristics, which is beneficial for the cooperation process

Multiple users is one of the key components that boost the collaboration

The Messenger makes the communication convenient than ever Especially, Facebook allows more than two people in a messenger box so intercommunication among members is devastatingly effective It is a fact that Message is one of the notable function of Facebook:

Many social networking sites incorporate an instant messaging feature, which lets people exchange information in real-time via a chat This is a great feature for teachers to use to facilitate classroom discussions because it lets them utilize the vast store of information available on the Web […] Social networking can provide a tool for managers to utilize in team meetings, for conference organizers to use to update attendees and for business people to use as a means of interacting with clients or prospects (Claywell, n.d)

As mentioned in his article, the advantage of sharing can be a tool for group discussion by its quick interaction Nowadays, Facebook also supports group for schools, where members are in a group and share information at any time According to Facebook Help Center, they are immediately informed by receiving

notification from every post from their groups That is the way members can keep in touch with others Sometimes, discussing through Facebook is a chance for unconfident students to raise their voice, comparing to face-to-face collaboration (Ataie, Shah & Nazir, 2015)

Multithreaded multitasking allows the users to solve many problems at the

same time For instance, when they are on Facebook for group work, they can chat with other friends or posting status Furthermore, Facebook is a useful tool for members to share learning materials (Ataie, Shah & Nazir, 2015) or recommend other resources from online available pages on Facebook (Llorens, Capdeferro

2011, as cited in Ataie, Shah & Nazir, 2015)

However, such type of online cooperation can cause some problems It is a custom that speaking speed is quicker than typing speech so that following other different members’ comments or messengers sometimes is a big trouble (Clark, n.d) Noticeably, the function of multitasking somehow distracts the learners from discussion by other friends’ message or comments

In general, Facebook creates a strong connection between group members by the multiple functions

2.4 Related studies on collaboration and the use of Facebook

Facebook seems to be a favored topic to researchers around the world, especially the relationship between Facebook and the largest population, which is the student Gafni and Deri (2012) studied the effect of Facebook on undergraduate students in four academic institutions in Israel The result showed no positive connection between the use of Facebook and their learning Particularly, the Facebook pages of these institutions did not update frequently so that they gained

no benefits from them On the contrary, Lampe, Wohn ,Vitak, Ellison and Wash (n.d) found that the form of distance learning via Facebook increased the communication effectiveness more than face-to-face discussion in the context of Midwest university (US) One of the given reasons for this is that students more online on Facebook have more available time for collaboration rather than ones with high offline frequency

Meanwhile, the collaboration has been paid more attention from the researchers Online learning tools did boost the collaboration (Clark, n.d); however, only E-mail was mentioned and investigated further for the means of cooperation

He did regard E-mail as a traditional tool but no suggestion for other convenient ones was made Other instructions were clearly designed by Burke (2011); however she focused on offline collaboration Although the integration of online or web- based was partly presented but with wikis

Particularly, the relationship between Facebook usage and group engagement was investigated (Suwannatthachote & Tantrarungroj, 2012) The two researchers observed the research participants in an online course to find out how group activities and Facebook usage are related to each other In fact, there was no relationship between using Facebook for group engagement but private purposes such as updating status, posting photos and so on Therefore, the researcher would like to use this research as a support for the questionnaire with some similarities in organizing the idea

In the context of Vietnam, this research area has not been investigated and applied Nguyen and Nham (n.d, as cited in Ngoc, 2014) undertook a study about the application of Facebook into the reform of teaching in the context of Vietnam Commercial University The result was quite positive when the students did not only use Facebook for the social relationship or entertainment but also their academic learning However, no study was conducted in the context of FELTE, ULIS

In short, there have been little research on such topic in ULIS environment, which creates a big gap for the researcher to work on

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Selection of subjects

As mentioned in the research title, the use of Facebook of Fast-track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS is investigated The students from 3 sophomore fast-track classes (2 classes majoring at Teaching and 1 at Interpretation) are the survey population

There are two main reasons for the fast-track sophomores at FELTE to be chosen: age and learning curriculum

Firstly, as aforementioned in the literature part, Facebook users are mostly in the age of 18-24 The students in the second-year seem to spend more time of Facebook with various purposes Therefore, the researcher would like to formally study their uses of group collaboration to see whether it is effective or not

Secondly, fast-track sophomores’ learning curriculum at FELTE make them totally fit the criteria of group collaboration According to ―Quy định về đào tạo cử nhân tài năng, chất lượng cao ở Đại Học Quốc Gia Hà Nội 2006‖ (as cited in Nguyen, 2013), fast-track program is ―a special training method to reach the regional and international quality standard in tertiary education‖ As a result, the requirement for the learners is demanding as well:

- ―In-depth knowledge of their L1 and the target language as well as the culture;

- Competent use of the knowledge in various communicating activities; and

- Personal qualities such as teamwork, tolerance, confidence and the ability for personal and peer assessment‖

(Nguyen et al, 2005, as cited in Nguyen, 2013)

It is clearly seen that with the great frequency of group collaboration in the learning curriculum, those personal qualities can be achieved

3.2 Research instruments

According to Babbie (2010, as cited in USC Libraries), quantitative method focuses on the data from a large population by using some numeric tools to provide the researcher the overview of the research problem In another word, quantitative research is ―explaining phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analyzed

using mathematically based methods (in particular statistics) (Creswell, 1994, as cited in Sukamolson, n.d) To find the explanation for a problem, quantity method is effective and appropriate

As a result, after perceiving the benefit of quantity method, the researcher decided to apply this one for the study about students’ perception of using Facebook for group collaboration With this method, data from students’ opinions will be collected and statistically reported

3.3 Procedure of data collection

3.3.1 Data collection instruments

3.3.1.1 Structured questionnaire

First and foremost, many ideas have agreed that structured questionnaire helps the researcher to collect information from a number of people regardless of their location at a shortest duration (Mitchell & Jolley, 2010, p.263) Caines (n.d) suggested that online form could spread the questionnaire to the research population Besides, the economy of this method is mentioned because it can save both time and money for the researcher during the research process (Key, 1997) It apparently reduces the time and cost to contact individuality to get involved in the study Moreover, the objectivity is emphasized (Milne, n.d) because other factors such as researcher or emotion does not affect the respondents’ choices Therefor the reliability of the result is substantially increased

3.3.1.2 Semi-structured interview

Interview is considered to be one of the most effective methods for the researcher to collect the participants’ ideas (Remenyi, 2011) During the interview, the respondent and the interviewer can directly interact as exchange information for further collaboration so that the effectiveness is clearly boosted (Phellas, Bloch & Clive Seale, n.d) It fact, it is common for interviewees to provide deeper answers in more questions to a specific researcher than just filling in an online form (Phellas, Bloch & Clive Seale, n.d) Sharing the same idea, McNamara (1999, as cited in Valenzuela & Shrivastava, n.d)

Interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a participant’s experiences The interviewer can pursue in-depth information around the topic Interviews may be useful as follow-up to certain respondents to questionnaires,e.g., to further investigate their responses

Moreover, ―standardization of at least some questions increases data reliability‖ (Woods, n.d)

Therefore, in this research, semi-structured interview is conducted to receive straightforward answers from the participants After thoroughly investigating the responses from the students, some of them will take part in private interviews The interviewing method can be various such as face-to-face, email, or Facebook; nonetheless, face-to-face interview is the most preferable method Especially, ICT teachers are contacted beforehand to go according to their schedules In case, the researcher and students cannot make arrangement for a face-to-face one, other online forms are taken use of

3.3.2 Construction of data collection instrument

Based on knowledge reviewed in the literature review part, especially from the study of Suwannatthachote and Tantrarungroj (2012), the researcher designed a questionnaire to investigate the use of Facebook among fast-track sophomores

There are two options for the questionnaire participants: the student having a Facebook account and the student not using Facebook

Table 1: Construction of data instrument

- The last activity is the most important choice to make the rest of answers are

do you often do?

- Receive information from group members

- Share group project information (ideas/

content, format, division…)

- Discuss group assignment

- Inquire about details of project assignment

- Set schedule for group meetings

- Share ideas and opinions

- Share knowledge and technique problems

- Contact others with the questions related to group assignment

- Post information necessary for group projects

- Receive feedbacks/

- This question was not applicable to students who do not use Facebook

- The options were adapted from Suwannatthachot

Tantrarungroj (2012)

- Interview questions were exploited to find the reason, clarification for participants’ answers

comments from people on the content that you have posted

- Others (Please specify)

a time

- Facebook is popular so almost people use it, which would be convenient for the whole

- The question was self- designed by the researcher

- Interview questions were given to students to ask about their situations,

explanations, etc…

- 3 ICT teachers were interviewed to give solutions for these difficulties

group discussion

- The members would easily distract from group discussion by chatting or playing games on

messages

- The members online at any places so the concentration would not

be constant

- Typing would be time-

consuming

- Members’ contribution would be hard to control

and measure

- Facebook would limit face-to-face call as Video call on Facebook is not popular as Skype or

Google Hangouts

3.4 Data collection procedure

3.4.1 The questionnaire

These following steps are strictly carried out:

Step 1: Contacting the participants The researcher contacts monitors from three

classes to arrange the day for the survey

Step 2: Ice- breaking The researcher comes to class and introduces about her/his

name and thesis to ask for the students’ help He/she make a promise to keep all the personal information as well as their answers

Step 3: Doing the survey The participants do the questionnaire Besides, the

researcher is available in class to answer all the questions about the survey

Step 4: Collecting the data After the students complete, all the questionnaires are

collected The researcher shows his/her gratitude to the students and mentions about the semi-structures interviews with some students

(Adapted from Nguyen, 2013)

3.4.2 The semi-structured interview

After receiving all the answer from the participants, the researcher considers the interviewees and individually contact based on their personal information At that time, ICT teachers are also contacted to ask for permission and arrange the interview as well Some tips that the researcher needs to pay attention to when conducting an interview are:

- The interview part should be followed by the greeting and thanks to the interviewee, which creates a friendly atmosphere between the interviewer and

interviewee (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)

- The researcher should motivate the interviewee to give more information by using some words such as ―tell me about, describe‖ or showing his/her interest

on some parts but remain neutral (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)

- The questions should be open-ended so that the interviewee has a chance to broaden their information (Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)

- Simple question is a good way to for the beginning of the interview part Other more difficult ones should be in the later part (Jacob & Furgerson, 2012)

3.5 Procedure of data analysis

After collecting from the students, the researcher calculates the result in terms of Mean, Mode as well as Median, and reports them in terms of content of the answer

At the same time, with the interviews from the students, the information is gathered

to explain further on the phenomenon After that, each perception/ idea is analyzed

to make it clearer The combination or comparison can be made among ideas

In general, this chapter has explained the methodology, which justifies the

participants as well as data collection and analysis method All of these steps are strictly followed by the researcher

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISSCUSSIONS

This chapter was to present the research findings and the discussion about those findings As a result, there were two main parts, which named respectively research findings and discussion of the findings

The first part simply revealed the result from participants’ questionnaires in three central questions, which are common activities on Facebook, perceived activities for group collaboration and advantages as well as disadvantages while using Facebook for group collaboration The analysis of collected data would be comprehensively performed, together with information from participants, to give the best answer

4.1 Summary of findings

4.1.1 Background of fast-track second-year students

In the number of 53 participants, 100% of them committed using Facebook but the length of having a Facebook account was ranged from one year and a half to seven years

Table 2: The length of using Facebook, perceived by fast-track sophomores

As can be seen from the table, the number of participants using Facebook for five years dominated other years with 36 % of the participants It is easily understood that Facebook gradually became popular at that time in Vietnam The

large number of participants use Facebook very soon as only one student just signed

up Facebook one and a half year ago

When being asked about how many hours they spent for Facebook every day:

Figure 8: Time for Facebook, perceived by fast-track sophomores

When being asked about how many hours they spent for Facebook every day and the pie chart shows the big gap between participants Up to 87% of participants used Facebook about 1-5 hours Meanwhile, no student used Facebook from 11 to

20 hours a day Particularly, 2 students said that they lived on Facebook Either of them clarified that ―Most of the time for social purpose but Facebook is also a very convenient way to discuss and get my work done‖ As a result, Facebook became an essential part in both social and academic lives In general, Facebook is moderately used by sophomores

4.1.2 Research question 1: How is Facebook often used by fast- track

sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU?

To find the answer for this question, fast-track sophomores are given a list of activities that they often do when on Facebook

Figure 9: Common activities on Facebook, perceived by fast-track sophomores

As can be seen from the chart, the range of percentage among these given activities is not wide The most outstanding activity perceived by the student is

Working in groups with the percentage of 100% This idea was posed to ensure that

every student used Facebook for her/his group collaboration Therefore, the result in next questions could be valid and reliable On the contrary, the smallest percentage

came to Playing games online It is easily understood that with the intensive

learning program, fast-track sophomores do not spend much time on entertainment applications

Besides, although not chosen by all of the participant, Chatting via Facebook messenger ranked second (98%) Other activities such as Viewing others‟ status, Seeing photos or Watching videos followed right after that, with the percentage

respectively 85%, 85% and 70% Coming next is Updating current events or news

when three out of fourth in the total of students often do that when facebooking

Moreover, some students added that they often followed posts from groups (Student A, 26 March 2016) or read notes and information about classes (Student B,

26 March 2016) In addition, some used Facebook for social purposes such as keeping in touch with other friends who they rarely met them directly (Student C,

26 March 2016) or connecting with people in the same interest (Student D, 26 March 2016)

In general, second-year students share many activities on Facebook in common Activities for relaxation such as going shopping and playing games were least undertaken by fast-track students Almost their choices are for both informal and formal learning

4.1.3 Research question 2: To what extent does Facebook influence on

group collaboration as reported by fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU?

After reviewing how Facebook is used by fast-track sophomores, the researcher wanted to investigate the role of Facebook on their collaborative process

Figure 10: Facebook activities on group collaboration, perceived by track sophomores

1 A1 Receive information from group members

2 A2 Share group project information (content, format, division…)

3 A3 Discuss group assignments

4 A4 Inquire about details of project assignment

5 A5 Set schedule for group meetings

6 A6 Share ideas and opinions

7 A7 Share knowledge and technique problems

8 A8 Contact others with the questions related to group assignment

9 A9 Post information necessary for group projects

10 A10 Receive feedbacks/ comments from people on the content

that you have posted The bar chart revealed students’ activities for group collaboration on

Facebook The top four common activities were discussing group assignments, sharing group project information (content, format, division…), sharing ideas and opinions, and receiving information from group members, respectively Group

discussion about assignments came top of the chart at 98% Another popular

activity was sharing group project information (content, format, division…) as about 96% of the students mentioned it The third top activity was sharing ideas and opinions, which accounted for 94%, just ahead of receiving information from

other activities were chosen by a relatively high proportion of students but just

larger than the least popular activity These included setting schedule for group meetings and receiving feedbacks/ comments from people at 72% of students, and sharing knowledge and technique problems, at 77%

In general, fast-track sophomores closely connected in group work via

Facebook, particularly related to content brainstorming activities as sharing ideas and information within group

Coming to deeper investigation, interviewees were required to give further explanation for their choices Some of them shared the same ideas about common activities for group collaboration

Thanks to Facebook, we can check the group work’s progress and remind each other to do it regularly […] After the part of each one is posted, we cross-check for each other and point out the problem with it If someone has done some research into the matter previously, he/ she can share some useful source for us to do, etc Indeed, Facebook is the most convenient tool for me and my friends to do all things mentioned above I think there is no such social networking sites that can serve as effective tool for teamwork as FB (Interview A, 10 April 2016)

However, some other students had opposite opinions Interview B shared that people could not fully present their ideas by commenting right on Facebook Besides, interview C rarely used Facebook for his homework as it did not work for him

The jury was still out of the matter; therefore, it is realistic to investigate more on two sides of using Facebook for group collaboration

4.1.4 Research question 3: What are the obstacles when using Facebook for

group work collaboration as reported by fast- track sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU?

The questionnaire is designed to measure the level of agreement to each perception The participants are required to choose an opinion, which is equivalent with an item in a likert-scale Based on participants’ choices, the researcher will calculate the Mean, Mode and Standard Deviation (SD) to interpret the statistic

Strongly agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly disagree

Advantages