L’article suivant a récemment complété ma bibliographie de recherche dans le cadre de dispositifs socio-techniques exploitant Twitter dans un cursus pédagogique.
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The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades
R. Junco,* G. Heiberger† & E. Loken‡
*Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA 17745, USA
†South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA
‡The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Abstract :
Despite the widespread use of social media by students and its increased use by instructors,
very little empirical evidence is available concerning the impact of social media use on student
learning and engagement. This paper describes our semester-long experimental study to determine
if using Twitter – the microblogging and social networking platform most amenable to
ongoing, public dialogue – for educationally relevant purposes can impact college student
engagement and grades.Atotal of 125 students taking a first year seminar course for pre-health
professional majors participated in this study (70 in the experimental group and 55 in the
control group). With the experimental group, Twitter was used for various types of academic
and co-curricular discussions. Engagement was quantified by using a 19-item scale based on
the National Survey of Student Engagement. To assess differences in engagement and grades,
we used mixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, with class sections nested within
treatment groups. We also conducted content analyses of samples of Twitter exchanges. The
ANOVA results showed that the experimental group had a significantly greater increase in
engagement than the control group, as well as higher semester grade point averages. Analyses
of Twitter communications showed that students and faculty were both highly engaged in the
learning process in ways that transcended traditional classroom activities. This study provides
experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help engage students
and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role.
Keywords :
cooperative/collaborative learning, learning communities, media in education, post-secondary
education, social media, teaching/learning strategies.