Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the use of social networking tools (e.g., Facebook) and social media in general, mainly for social purposes (Smith, Salaway & Caruso 2009). Many educators, including ourselves, believe that these tools offer new educational affordances and avenu...

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Autores principales:	Bruno Poellhuber, Terry Anderson, Normand Roy
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Athabasca University Press 2011
Materias:	distance education social software webconferencing collaboration social presence technology Special aspects of education LC8-6691
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/875019fc305448fe8b0eb7f193aecad2
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:875019fc305448fe8b0eb7f193aecad22021-12-02T17:16:07ZDistance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration10.19173/irrodl.v12i6.10181492-3831https://doaj.org/article/875019fc305448fe8b0eb7f193aecad22011-10-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1018https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831 In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the use of social networking tools (e.g., Facebook) and social media in general, mainly for social purposes (Smith, Salaway & Caruso 2009). Many educators, including ourselves, believe that these tools offer new educational affordances and avenues for students to interact with each other and with their teachers or tutors. Considering the traditional drop-out rate problem documented in distance courses (Rovai, 2003; Woodley, 2004), these tools may be of special interest for distance education institutions as they have potential to assist in the critical “social integration” associated with persistence (Sweet, 1986; Tinto, 1975). However, as distance students are typically older than regular on-campus students, (Bean & Metzner, 1985; Rovai, 2003) little is known about their expertise with social media or their interest in harnessing these tools for informal learning or collaborating with peers. To investigate these issues, an online questionnaire was distributed to students from four large Canadian distance education institutions. A systematic sampling procedure lead to 3462 completed questionnaires. The results show that students have diverse views and experiences, but they also show strong and significant age and gender differences in a variety of measures, as well as an important institution effect for interest in collaboration. Males and younger students score higher on almost all indicators, including cooperative preferences. The limits of the study and future developments and research questions are outlined. // Bruno PoellhuberTerry AndersonNormand RoyAthabasca University Pressarticledistance educationsocial softwarewebconferencingcollaborationsocial presencetechnologySpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691ENInternational Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Vol 12, Iss 6 (2011)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	distance education social software webconferencing collaboration social presence technology Special aspects of education LC8-6691
spellingShingle	distance education social software webconferencing collaboration social presence technology Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Bruno Poellhuber Terry Anderson Normand Roy Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration
description	In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the use of social networking tools (e.g., Facebook) and social media in general, mainly for social purposes (Smith, Salaway & Caruso 2009). Many educators, including ourselves, believe that these tools offer new educational affordances and avenues for students to interact with each other and with their teachers or tutors. Considering the traditional drop-out rate problem documented in distance courses (Rovai, 2003; Woodley, 2004), these tools may be of special interest for distance education institutions as they have potential to assist in the critical “social integration” associated with persistence (Sweet, 1986; Tinto, 1975). However, as distance students are typically older than regular on-campus students, (Bean & Metzner, 1985; Rovai, 2003) little is known about their expertise with social media or their interest in harnessing these tools for informal learning or collaborating with peers. To investigate these issues, an online questionnaire was distributed to students from four large Canadian distance education institutions. A systematic sampling procedure lead to 3462 completed questionnaires. The results show that students have diverse views and experiences, but they also show strong and significant age and gender differences in a variety of measures, as well as an important institution effect for interest in collaboration. Males and younger students score higher on almost all indicators, including cooperative preferences. The limits of the study and future developments and research questions are outlined. //
format	article
author	Bruno Poellhuber Terry Anderson Normand Roy
author_facet	Bruno Poellhuber Terry Anderson Normand Roy
author_sort	Bruno Poellhuber
title	Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration
title_short	Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration
title_full	Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration
title_fullStr	Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration
title_full_unstemmed	Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration
title_sort	distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration
publisher	Athabasca University Press
publishDate	2011
url	https://doaj.org/article/875019fc305448fe8b0eb7f193aecad2
work_keys_str_mv	AT brunopoellhuber distancestudentsreadinessforsocialmediaandcollaboration AT terryanderson distancestudentsreadinessforsocialmediaandcollaboration AT normandroy distancestudentsreadinessforsocialmediaandcollaboration
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Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration

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