Social media in the learning ecologies of communications students: Identifying profiles from students’ perspective

Abstract

Social media can be a support during the initial training of communication professionals, although most studies on social media and learning have mainly focused on other professional groups. The purpose of this article is to explore how communication students learn and their use of social media platforms, in order to identify the role of social media in supporting communication students’ learning. Data was collected using a questionnaire sent to communication students of the UOC and analyzed using a clustering technique, to identify student profiles based on how they organize their learning and their use of social media platforms. Our results suggest that there are 5 main student profiles: (i) students that learn through many contexts with strong support of Wikipedia, Blogs and YouTube; (ii) students with preference for academically guided learning resources; (iii) students with preference for informal and digital learning contexts, supported by social networks; (iv) students with preference for physical and formal contexts with a slight support of interactive social media platforms and (v) students detached academically with low use of learning resources and occasional use of social media platforms. Findings show that in the formative stage, there is a different degree of utility of social media among communication students, with a division between platforms that we could designate as more static and sources of information (Wikipedia, blogs or YouTube) and more interactive and dynamic (Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn). The findings of this article can help to inform and make communication studies more flexible, collaborative and personalized oriented. In follow up studies, it would be interesting to delve further into how COVID-19 has affected the role of social media platforms.

An examination of learning ecologies associated with the Holocaust: The role of social media

“…Unlike other works that have examined the varying degrees of usefulness of social media for formal or informal learning (Bruguera et al, 2022), this study examines the learning ecologies of adult learners that occur on a selected set of social media platforms. We seek to explore how adult learners engage with different learning opportunities and resources on social media, and how these social media platforms can be used to facilitate learning in an informal setting.…”

“…Learning ecosystems share some physical characteristics with natural ecosystems, such as easy access to schools, museums, libraries and other non‐profit educational organisations, as well as some non‐physical characteristics, such as the digital or the immaterial in general (Barron, 2006). This concept comprises a conceptualisation of learning environments in which personalised and self‐initiated learning can be integrated with formal instruction through multiple and non‐linear pathways of reciprocal relationships and influences (Bruguera et al, 2022; Sangrá et al, 2021).…”

“…In the field of professional learning and academic development, social media have proven to be valuable learning environments where human practices, professional and personal identities are shaped, and new professional learning ecologies emerge because of interactions between diverse networks (Carpenter et al, 2022; Greenhow et al, 2019; Heidari et al, 2021). Unlike other works that have examined the varying degrees of usefulness of social media for formal or informal learning (Bruguera et al, 2022), this study examines the learning ecologies of adult learners that occur on a selected set of social media platforms. We seek to explore how adult learners engage with different learning opportunities and resources on social media, and how these social media platforms can be used to facilitate learning in an informal setting.…”

Participating in professional development programmes or learning in the wild? Understanding the learning ecologies of Holocaust educators

“…The lifelong learning ecology is a complex and multi‐layered concept that explores the development of learning resources and the relationship between beliefs and attitudes in different contexts (Sangrà, Raffaghelli & Veletsianos, 2019). The concept applies to all life domains and related beliefs (Jackson, 2013) and has been studied in different educational settings, including primary school teachers (Estévez et al., 2021; Sangrá et al., 2021; Soszyński, 2022), higher education (González‐Sanmamed et al., 2020; Peters & Romero, 2019) and learners' use of ICT and social media (Bruguera et al., 2022; Carpenter & Staudt Willet, 2021; van den Beemt & Diepstraaten, 2016).…”