Exploring students’ Twitter use in the online classroom across 4 years

Abstract

Online asynchronous courses require close attention to course design to ensure there are strategies in place to foster social presence to build stronger senses of community and to motivate students to engage (content, peers and instructors). Judicious use of social media may serve this purpose. Since its inception, social media, Twitter in particular, has been employed in higher education courses for teaching and learning experiences with a notable impact on student engagement and social presence. This research examines students’ use of Twitter for assessment and interaction in the online asynchronous classroom from 2014 to 2018, to determine if there has been an increase in the length, amount or content within Tweets, and if students report stronger engagement and interaction following the use of Twitter for assessment. While results indicate such a connection exists, students were more focused on completing course requirements than creating connections or interacting with others, and were bothered by the constraints of the Tweet length.

Large Discussion Groups’ Impact on Engagement and Community

“…The survey instrument was validated in a previous study (Rohr, Costello & Hawkins, 2018;Rohr, Costello & Squires, 2023).…”

“…An anonymous survey was administered in the final two weeks of each semester, through the LMS's survey tool to all three course sections. The questions were developed based on existing literature, our research questions, and our earlier work on engagement in online learning environments (Rohr, Costello & Hawkins, 2018;Rohr, Costello & Squires, 2023;Rohr, Squires & Peters, 2022). All…”

“…Similar to regular discussion tools, micro discussions tools, like X (formerly Twitter), help facilitate engagement through increased communication among all class members, collaboration with peers and engagement with course material (Amry, 2018;Osborne et al, 2018;Rohr, Costello & Squires, 2023;Rohr, Squires & Peters, 2022;West et al, 2015). This engagement allows students to share their knowledge by connecting the course material and real-world events while negotiating understanding and co-constructing knowledge with their peers (Woods et al, 2023).…”