A Users’ Perspective on Academic Blogging

Abstract

There has been much research dedicated to the use of blogs in higher education, but a great deal of its enthusiasm is based on data that have the potential to be distorted by social desirability. The current chapter attempts a more balanced look at the use of educational blogs, taking into account the shortcomings, as well as the benefits of their proliferation amongst students. The authors write from the perspective of the blog users. Although their feedback is mostly positive, user behavior is also affected by fear of peer appraisal, lack of engagement, lack of trust, or unwillingness to share knowledge or to debate. In order to support our argumentation, the authors use traffic data from the educational blog “blogdeseminar,” survey data from a convenience sample of Romanian students, and qualitative data from 11 interviews.