An exploration of the potential educational value of Facebook

Computers in Human Behavior 32 (2014) 201–211

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Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Research Report

An exploration of the potential educational value of Facebook Bin-Shyan Jong a,1, Chien-Hung Lai a,⇑, Yen-Teh Hsia a,1, Tsong-Wuu Lin b,2, Yu-Syuan Liao a,3 a b

Department of Information & Computer Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, No. 200, Chung Pei Rd., Chung Li 32023, Taiwan Department of Computer Science and Information Management, Soochow University, No. 56, Kueiyang St. See. 1, Taipei 100, Taiwan

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:

Keywords: Facebook E-learning Bulletin board system Learning platform

a b s t r a c t Current research on Facebook use suggests that students primarily use it to enhance social connectedness, but seldom for educational purposes. The aim of this study is to respond to the three following questions: (1) Is there a potential educational value in using Facebook? (2) If so, how does Facebook’s educational value compare with its other known values? (3) How does the educational utility of Facebook compare with that of other social mediums available on the Internet, such as the bulletin board system (BBS)? A total of 387 subjects voluntarily participated in an anonymous online survey. These subjects were questioned about their use of Facebook, BBS platforms, and e-learning platforms. There were three major new findings. Firstly, 81% of subjects had discussed course-related problems with their peers on Facebook. Secondly, in relation to the six known motives for using Facebook, peer discussion of educational matters was considered to be the fourth most important in this survey. Lastly, Facebook does not satisfy users’ occasional need to review or browse through past communication records; BBS fares much better in this regard. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Barnes (1954) was perhaps the first to use the term ‘‘social network’’ to denote the social relations existing among individuals and groups as well as the social structures originating from such relations, whether simple encounters or intimate relationships. A social network service is a virtual community formed on a computer network by a group of people with a common interest. In the early days of the Internet, social networks were essentially bulletin board systems (BBS) and personal websites (Lin, 2002), with the use of discussion areas and email exchanges being the main forms of communication. Since this only facilitated a kind of asynchronous communication, users of such networks could not immediately learn about others’ most recent activities on the network. This then prompted the development of chat rooms and instant message services, and many people started to use network chatting and instant messaging software to meet friends online; this in turn made the concept of online friends a very popular idea. With the arrival of Web 2.0, blogs became popular. Blog owners can easily express their feelings at any time and share it with visitors to the ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 3 265 4717; fax: +886 3 265 4751. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B.-S. Jong), [email protected] (C.-H. Lai), [email protected] (Y.-T. Hsia), [email protected] (T.-W. Lin), [email protected] (Y.-S. Liao). 1 Tel.: +886 3 265 4717; fax: +886 3 265 4751. 2 Tel.: +886 2 2311 531x3807; fax: +886 2 2375 6878. 3 Tel.: +886 3 265 4717; fax: +886 3 265 4751. 0747-5632/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.12.007

blog. With Web 2.0, interaction and sharing became the main streams of thoughts in social networks. There is no longer any need for a user to write long and tedious blogs; instead, micro-blogs can be written to inform friends about the user’s most recent status and activities. Established in 2004, Facebook is the most popular social network nowadays. According to Alexa traffic rank statistics (Alexa, 2012), Facebook ranks among the top five websites in the world. This popularity has thus led to Facebook being a significant research topic. A 2012 survey (InsightXplorer Monthly Chinese Report, 2012) indicated that Facebook was the most visited website among Taiwanese young people aged between 12 and 22 years; this suggests that Facebook is thus very popular among university students in Taiwan. In addition, according to the website www.checkfacebook.com (2012), there are 800 million Facebook users worldwide, with more than 10 million living in Taiwan. In addition to its standard services, such as sharing photos, information, and videos, Facebook also offers functionalities such as searching for friends, chatting online, establishing groups, and playing games (Facebook Statistics, 2008). Facebook users are especially satisfied with the ‘‘wall’’ function. A Facebook wall combines a bulletin board with a discussion board; it offers the functionalities of micro-blogs, making it possible for users to conveniently post information and disperse it quickly among friends (Joinson, 2008). In 2006, Facebook started to permit third parties to provide application program interfaces (APIs), which allow applications to run on Facebook and in turn help it to become

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the fastest growing website in the world. APIs can be designed to provide basic user data, which allows API developers to know more about their users. The manner in which Facebook operates can greatly increase the speed by which users obtain new information. This helps them to solve problems in a more efficient way, which may in turn help to improve the learning performance of students. Compared with traditional e-learning platforms, it is also easier to obtain user statistics on Facebook. Therefore, researchers have begun to study why students use Facebook, how its use influences students, and what students think about it (Hew, 2011). Most Facebook users spend between 10 min and 1 h on Facebook each day (Christofides, Muise, & Desmarais, 2009; Muise, Christofides, & Desmarais, 2009; Ross et al., 2009; Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009). They mainly use it to maintain pre-established relationships (Bosch, 2009; Lewis & West, 2009; Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert 2009; Tosun, 2012; Young & Quan-Haase, 2009). When people gradually ‘‘move away’’ from one another in real life, they can use Facebook to stay in touch and maintain their relationship (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007). Most students use Facebook because they find it amusing, as well as livelier and easier to use compared to other social networks (Lewis & West, 2009). In general, there seems to be no negative effects of using Facebook, and its contents seldom involve alcohol or drug use, or pornographic pictures (Kolek & Saunders, 2008). Even though most users use it every day, their personalities are unaffected by the number of their online friends or the time spent on the social network (Ross et al., 2009). As Facebook usage increases, the issue of privacy comes into focus. While users can quickly and conveniently learn about the most recent activities and status of others, some are concerned about the disclosure of private information. For this reason, more than half of users change the default privacy settings (Gross & Acquisti, 2005) and only allow their Facebook friends to view their private information (Pempek et al., 2009). In addition, female users are more concerned about privacy settings than their male counterparts (Lewis, Kaufman, & Christakis, 2008). Sheldon (2008) conducted a survey of 172 college students and used principal component analysis to analyze their responses to 26 questionnaire items. Using this methodology, Sheldon identified six motives for using Facebook: relationship maintenance, passing time, virtual community, entertainment, coolness, and companionship. Interestingly, education was not one of these motives. However, this is not in disagreement with the findings obtained in other studies. For example, Pempek et al. (2009) found that only 2.17% of surveyed students (2 out of 92) tried to find help for their schoolwork on Facebook. Madge, Meek, Wellens, and Hooley (2009) found that only 10% of students (31 out of 312) used Facebook to discuss academic work with their peers, while the majority (91%) never communicated with academic staff on Facebook, which is supported by Ophus and Abbitt (2009) who found that 85.5% of 110 students were not in contact with academic staff on the social network. For these and other reasons, Hew (2011) concluded, ‘‘Facebook thus far has very little educational use’’ (p. 668) in his research overview of the use of Facebook by students and teachers. He also conducted a questionnaire survey among 83 Singapore students, finding that ‘‘no respondent reported using Facebook for educational purposes’’ (Hew & Cheung, 2012, p. 181). Given that Facebook is exceedingly popular for discussing issues among friends, it is only natural to expect that students eventually will use Facebook to discuss course-related materials with their peers, teaching assistants, or even instructors. However, it is also possible that Facebook is not entirely suitable for such purposes. Therefore, as an initial exploration, this research attempts to respond to the following three questions:

(1) Is there a potential educational value in using Facebook? (2) If so, how does Facebook’s educational value compare with the six values (i.e., relationship maintenance, passing time, virtual community, entertainment, coolness, and companionship) as identified by Sheldon (2008)? (3) How is the educational utility of Facebook compared with that of other social mediums available on the Internet, such as the BBS? Researchers have already investigated the issue of how Facebook may be used to help students learn more effectively. For example, DeSchryver, Mishra, Koehleer, and Francis (2009) studied its use in discussing course-related materials. In terms of its use in courses, Larue (2012) not only used Facebook for class discussions, but also tried to employ it for course management; Irwin, Ball, Desbrow, and Leveritt (2012) also developed Facebook pages for four courses and then used them for blended learning. Finally, Mazer, Murphy, and Simomds (2007) studied how the high, medium, and low self-disclosure of instructors on Facebook might affect their credibility as perceived by the students taking the course. These studies explored the issue of how Facebook may be beneficially incorporated into a course. However, no attempt has been made to compare its educational value with the six values identified by Sheldon (2008) or to contrast its educational utility with that of the BBS. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the methods used in conducting a questionnaire survey. Section 3 presents the questionnaire items, the survey results, and explanations of the subjects’ responses. Section 4 includes the discussion, while Section 5 presents the conclusions of the study. 2. Method 2.1. Overview To respond to the three research questions, an anonymous online questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate how Facebook, BBS platforms, and e-learning platforms are used for learning purposes and identify users’ experiences of them. The questionnaire included 28 items, as shown in Table 1. These items related to (1) the convenience of sharing educational resources, (2) timeliness of posting publications, and (3) functionalities for reading or browsing through articles and interacting with virtual community members. To help subjects better understand the meaning of the questionnaire items, explanations of the three platforms were given at the start. 2.2. Participants The questionnaire was posted on Facebook and the ‘‘PTT Workshop of the National Taiwan University,’’ an exceedingly popular BBS with tens of thousands of registered users. Users of these two sites were invited to fill out the questionnaire. Students enrolled in the department of Information and Computer Engineering (ICE) of Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU) were particularly encouraged to visit the Facebook page containing the questionnaire. As a result, a total of 387 subjects participated in the survey. Nowadays, very few academic institutions in Taiwan still use the BBS for course purposes. Therefore, by examining the responses to the question on whether students’ course used a BBS as a learning platform, it was estimated that about half of the subjects were enrolled in the ICE department of CYCU. Several courses offered by the department use a BBS or e-learning platform (LearnBank, 2007) to facilitate learning. Therefore, these students were familiar with the use of both learning platforms. The

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Table 1 Content of the learning platform questionnaire.

(continued on next page)

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e-learning platform used was CYCU i-learning Internet academy (http://i-learning.cycu.edu.tw/). This platform provides instructors and students with different kinds of curricular activities. Through this platform, instructors can setup homework assignments and tests, upload multimedia course materials for students, and interact with students online; on the other hand, students can use the interface to upload homework, do online tests, read, watch, or listen to course materials, and discuss any learning problems. The platform can be used for both asynchronous and distant learning.

3. Questionnaire result and discussion 3.1. Education levels of subjects Fig. 1 depicts the education levels of all subjects. The majority were freshmen, with juniors being the second most common group. Fig. 2 shows that Facebook was the most widespread social network website followed by Plurk and Google+. While some participants used more than one social network, others did not use any.

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Fig. 3. Which platform is better if the instructor wants to use it to keep you posted? Fig. 1. Levels of education of all subjects. Table 2 ANOVA of platforms scores (Immediacy of learning what teachers post).

Fig. 2. Social network Web sites that are most often used (Subjects were allowed to specify more than one Web site.).

3.2. Experiences of using different learning platforms Half of the subjects (51%) had experience in using a BBS for learning, while the majority (79%) had used an e-learning platform. In comparison, only 30% of those surveyed had used Facebook for learning purposes. This finding suggests that Facebook may still make progress in the education domain. 3.3. Immediacy of learning what teachers post on the Internet With regard to the issue of rapidly seeing what instructors post on network sites to inform students, 65% of subjects considered Facebook to be a better platform followed by e-learning platforms. Only 16% of subjects considered the BBS to be the best alternative (Fig. 3). Concerning this issue, subjects were asked to rank the three networks in terms of how quickly they would see instructors’ posts. For each platform, a subject had to provide a score from 1 through 5. As a result, Facebook had an average score of 3.946, BBS 3.052, and e-learning platforms 2.884. For any two platforms, one-way ANOVA showed that there was a significant difference in scores (Table 2). These findings clearly indicate that Facebook fares much better. This result is in agreement with the previous question on subjects’ preferred platform for quickly learning about course announcements. When Facebook users join a discussion group, they are notified of new articles appearing on the board, with notifications appearing on the users’ own boards. As a result, Facebook users only need to visit the relevant course discussion boards when notified about new announcements; thus, they do not need to constantly visit the discussion board to check for new course announcements. BBS ranked second after Facebook with a score

Group

Average

Variance

F

Critical value

a

Facebook BBS E-learning Facebook BBS E-learning BBS E-learning Facebook

3.945736 3.05168 2.883721 3.945736 3.05168 2.883721 3.05168 2.883721 3.945736

0.973732 1.271934 1.27919 0.973732 1.271934 1.27919 1.271934 1.27919 0.973732

137.751

3.853532

0.05

193.743

3.853532

0.05

4.27941

3.853532

0.05

107.345

3.003496

0.05

of 3.052, being higher than that of e-learning platforms (2.884). Therefore, even though users prefer e-learning platforms over the BBS, they nevertheless consider the BBS to be better in terms of accessing new course announcements. The principle reason is that unread articles in the BBS are given a different color, so that when users log in, they know which boards contain articles to be read. The BBS design can thus save users time when checking new course announcements. In comparison, users of e-learning platforms must always go to the course bulletin boards to check for new course announcements, thus explaining their lower score. 3.4. Convenience in sharing educational resources For sharing multimedia or textual educational resources, 58% of subjects prefer Facebook, 32% e-learning platforms, and only 10% the BBS (Fig. 4). As to scoring the three platforms with regard to sharing, Facebook obtained an average score of 3.775, e-learning platforms 3.266, and the BBS 3.016. For any two platforms, one-way ANOVA showed that there was a significant difference in scores (Table 3).

Fig. 4. Which one of the three is better for sharing (multimedia or textual) educational resources of a course?

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Table 3 ANOVA of platforms scores (convenience in sharing educational resources). Group

Average

Variance

F

Critical value

a

Facebook BBS E-learning Facebook BBS E-learning BBS E-learning Facebook

3.775194 3.015504 3.26615 3.775194 3.015504 3.26615 3.015504 3.26615 3.775194

0.915652 1.061935 1.27354 0.915652 1.061935 1.27354 1.061935 1.27354 0.915652

112.94

3.853532

0.05

45.8076

3.853532

0.05

10.4102

3.853532

0.05

53.5111

3.003496

0.05

Regarding these results (see also Fig. 4), we see that the scores pertaining to the three platforms are in agreement with how subjects felt about them with regard to sharing educational resources. The findings also showed that e-learning platforms, being equipped with a more comprehensive set of functions for setting up materials, fare better in terms of sharing, acquiring, and watching material. However, the average score of Facebook was higher than that of e-learning platforms (3.775 versus 3.266), which is probably because it is easier to upload files to Facebook, without having to go through tedious setup procedures. Even though uploaded multimedia items are distributed point-wise on Facebook, they can be immediately viewed, which makes the social network better than e-learning platforms. In general, users of e-learning platforms may find it somewhat inconvenient to share educational resources, because the setup procedures for sharing are rather tedious. Nevertheless, e-learning platforms still have some advantages over Facebook, as they are designed to systematically share different kinds of resources, which may explain why 32% of subjects still prefer e-learning platforms. On the other hand, the average score for the BBS was 3.016, being the lowest of the three platforms. This may be explained by the fact that BBS users can only share textual resources; multimedia resources can only be shared through external links connecting to websites, such as YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/). As a result, the functionalities of BBS are rather limited in terms of sharing educational resources, which is reflected in its lower score.

also showed that there was a significant difference in scores (Table 4). For reviewing or browsing through articles, BBS platforms showed the best results. Two reasons may explain these findings. First, it is straightforward and efficient to use ‘‘hot keys’’ to browse through a collection of articles in the BBS. Second, the method of reviewing articles on a given topic is seamlessly integrated into the BBS, as the user needs only to perform a search operation and then use ‘‘hot keys’’ to browse through the retrieved articles. Compared to the BBS, e-learning platforms have a higher score for sharing educational resources. However, they are designed to share different kinds of resources and not sharing textual resources alone. As a result, e-learning platforms are not as easy to use as the BBS for reviewing or browsing articles. Facebook, on the other hand, had the lowest average score on this topic. As this research was being conducted, Facebook began to offer a so-called ‘‘timeline’’ whose purpose is to help users keep track of events occurring at different times. It also allows users to switch to articles posted within different time frames. This certainly helps to locate certain kinds of articles. However, in terms of reviewing or browsing through past articles on a given topic, the concept of a ‘‘timeline’’ may not be very useful, which explains why Facebook fares the worst among the platforms.

Table 4 ANOVA of platforms scores (Reviewing past articles). Group

Average

Variance

F

Critical value

a

Facebook BBS E-learning Facebook BBS E-learning BBS E-learning Facebook

3.03876 3.630491 3.191214 3.03876 2.883721 3.945736 3.945736 3.05168 2.883721

1.384504 1.389016 1.113601 1.384504 1.27919 0.973732 0.973732 1.271934 1.27919

48.8572

3.853532

0.05

3.853532

0.05

29.8396

3.853532

0.05

28.1929

3.003496

0.05

3.60066

3.5. Reviewing past articles For the use of the three platforms for reviewing or browsing through past articles on a certain topic, 50% of the subjects preferred the BBS, 28% Facebook, and 22% e-learning platforms (Fig. 5). As to the functionalities provided by the platforms, the average scores for the BBS, e-learning platforms, and Facebook were 3.630, 3.191, and 3.039, respectively. For the BBS and e-learning platforms, one-way ANOVA showed that there was a significant difference in scores; for the BBS and Facebook, one-way ANOVA Fig. 6. User preferences of the three platforms for course interaction.

Table 5 ANOVA of platforms scores (interacting with other users).

Fig. 5. Preferred platform for reviewing or browsing through past articles on a certain topic.

Group

Average

Variance

F

Critical value

a

Facebook BBS E-learning Facebook BBS E-learning BBS E-learning Facebook

4.175711 2.994832 2.609819 4.175711 2.994832 2.609819 2.994832 2.609819 4.175711

0.777336 1.1036 1.06239 0.777336 1.1036 1.06239 1.1036 1.06239 0.777336

289.911

3.853532

0.05

515.8

3.853532

0.05

26.4853

3.853532

0.05

262.621

3.003496

0.05

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can also communicate with one another by sending real-time messages in private. The factors thus contribute to making Facebook the preference of subjects. 3.7. Influence of having teachers as ‘‘friends’’ on Facebook usage

Fig. 7. Percentage of those who added teachers’ accounts to their Facebook.

3.6. Interacting with other users As for course-associated interactions, such as chatting and discussions, 76% of subjects preferred Facebook, 14% BBS platforms, and 10% e-learning platforms (Fig. 6). Facebook obtained an average score of 4.087 followed by BBS platforms with 3.111 and e-learning platforms with 2.889. For any two platforms, one-way ANOVA showed that there was a significant difference in scores (Table 5). From Fig. 6, we can see that over 70% of subjects preferred using Facebook for interaction purposes. Facebook users master the easy-to-use interactional functionalities in a very short period of time (Joinson, 2008; Pennington, 2009). They can then easily interact with friends and share personal information and photos. To respond to an article posted in a BBS, one can choose to ‘‘reply’’ or ‘‘recommend.’’ The functionality of ‘‘recommend’’ allows users to append only one line of text at the end of the article. This design aims to accommodate concise opinions and responses. To view an article and the associated responses, BBS users use two hot keys (UP and DOWN keys) to read the contents of the article and the reactions to it. If users wish to respond to the article with more than one line of text, they can use the ‘‘reply’’ functionality. A reply to an article is posted on the same board on which the article appears, and its title starts with the prefix ‘‘Re’’ to signify that it is a reply to a previous article on the same board. By performing a text search through the titles of articles (including replies and replies to replies, etc.), BBS users can obtain a collection of articles discussing a common topic. In addition to posting articles, recommendations, and replies, users can also send private one-line messages (socalled ‘‘water balls’’) to other users online. This makes it easier to communicate online, thereby helping students to learn better. The design of e-learning platforms is such that when users want to reply to an article, they must post a new article. Furthermore, users must generally use the mouse to ‘‘enter’’ and ‘‘leave’’ articles. These features thus make it very inconvenient to view articles and any associated opinions. Compared to BBS and e-learning platforms, Facebook fares much better, because users can easily post new articles and links as well as post and view the responses to existing articles. Users

This research also investigated whether subjects were affected in using Facebook when their course instructors also had Facebook accounts. From Fig. 7, it can be seen that 74% of subjects added teachers as their Facebook friends, which means that teachers are more willing to give details of their Facebook accounts to students than their phone numbers. As not all subjects added teachers as their Facebook friends, respondents were asked to assume that they had done so before responding to the subsequent questions. Results showed that almost half of subjects (48%) were affected by what they wrote on Facebook after adding their teachers as friends. Nevertheless, the majority did not regret doing so. This was probably because Facebook offers ways to restrict the readership of articles posted online. Despite over 70% of subjects having teachers as their friends, only 24% asked them about course-related problems through Facebook. In contrast, 81% of subjects discussed course-related issues with their peers, indicating that students initially tend to seek help from peers. As Ammer (1998) points out, students use more familiar means to have discussions with one another; therefore, assistance offered by peers may prove more helpful than that offered by teachers. Bargh and Schul (1980) also highlight that when students teach their peers, this may help to strengthen their own understanding of what they have learned, and as a result, they may gain something valuable from the process. 3.8. Motives for Facebook use The purpose of this research was to explore the potential educational value of Facebook. Therefore, not only were the subjects asked whether they discussed course-related issues with their peers on Facebook, but also their motives for using it. The questionnaire used in this research included questions related to the six motives for Facebook use as identified by Sheldon (2008) in addition to a question on discussing educational issues with peers. Due to a technical error, the first 126 subjects who completed the questionnaire did not see (and thus answer) this last set of questions. Among the 261 subjects who responded, 59% wanted to use Facebook to discuss their courses with peers (Fig. 8). Special and Li-Barber (2012) used a survey to rank Sheldon’s six motives. Table 6 compares Special’s ranking with the results obtained in this study. The two rankings are very similar, with the only difference being in terms of coolness and companionship. In addition, this study found that peer discussion of educational matters was ranked fourth among the seven possible motives, suggesting

Table 6 The ordering obtained by Special and Li-Barber (2012) vs. the ordering obtained in this research. Ordering of the six motivations identified by Sheldon

Ordering obtained in this research

1. 2. 3. 4.

1. Relationship maintenance 2. Pass time 3. Entertainment 4. Peer discussion of educational matters 5. Virtual community 6. Companionship 7. Coolness

Relationship maintenance Pass time Entertainment Virtual community

5. Coolness 6. Companionship Fig. 8. Motives for Facebook use.

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that educational matters are a somewhat important motive for Facebook use, at least for the subjects surveyed in this research. When faced with an unfamiliar concept or difficult problem, students may ask for help from their peers or discuss the issue with them. By sharing one’s own views and exchanging ideas, a new consensus may be reached, thereby improving a student’s understanding of the topic (Liu & Tsai, 2005; Tsai, Lin, & Yuan, 2002).

4. Discussion Tables 7 and 8 and Fig. 9 present a correlation analysis of the results of the questionnaire survey conducted in this research. Table 7 shows the correlations between the various learning platform aspects and the seven motives for Facebook use. Table 8 shows the correlations among the seven motives themselves. Fig. 9 is a somewhat simplified graphical representation of Table 8, with dashed lines representing significant correlations and thick lines representing even more significant correlations. From Fig. 9 it can be seen that whatever the motive is for Facebook use, it is probable that there is also a motive for peer discussion of educational matters. From Table 7 it can be seen that those who would use Facebook for peer discussion of educational matters probably had already done similar things in the past. Interestingly, 81% of the respondents had the experience of using Facebook to discuss course-related problems with their peers, and yet only 59% of them explicitly identified peer discussion of educational matters as a motive for Facebook use. This suggests that for some subjects at least, peer discussion of educational matters only occurred as a ‘‘side effect’’ of their use of Facebook. From Table 7 it can be seen that pass time, entertainment and peer discussion of educational matters are the three motives correlated with more learning

aspects. From Fig. 9 it can also be seen that these three motives are strongly correlated. Therefore, when someone who considers Facebook useful in some learning aspect(s) signs in Facebook to pass time or for entertainment, he/she is more likely than others to also use Facebook for peer discussion of educational matters. An important finding of this research was that 81% of subjects had used Facebook to discuss course-related problems with their peers, which is in sharp contrast to previously reported figures of 2.17% (Pempek et al., 2009) and 10% (Madge et al., 2009). In this study, it was also found that 24% of subjects used Facebook to communicate with academic staff, which differs again from previously reported figures of 9% (Madge et al., 2009) and 14.5% (Ophus and Abbitt, 2009). How can such differences in the results be explained? The answer may lie in cultural differences. The word ‘‘culture’’ here does not by any means denote an Eastern or Western culture, but rather a kind of ‘‘student culture.’’ Around half of respondents to the survey were enrolled in the department of ICE at CYCU. It is thus perhaps reasonable to make an analysis from the perspectives of these students. At CYCU, freshmen enrolled in the same department are grouped into one or two classes, remaining in the same class until they graduate. They take the required courses together, and they live on the same dormitory floor during their first year in college, with their roommates being classmates. As a result, they often develop a strong sense of being classmates and often form small groups. Members of a small group may go to class, eat, and even socialize together. Supposing that a student did not attend an important class because he overslept, participated in an extracurricular activity, or stayed in his room and played computer games, it is thus only natural for the student to ask a friend on Facebook if anything important happened in the class. It would also be very natural for a student with better academic performance to inform his friends that there will be a quiz

Table 7 Correlations between learning platform aspects and motives for Facebook use (Num = 261). Motives for Facebook use

Learning platform

Immediacy of learning what teachers post

BBS

Virtual community

Entertainment

Coolness

Companionship

Peer discussion

.007 .912 .020 .742 .053 .392

.056 .364 .186** .003 .027 .663

.026 .676 .070 .258 .055 .380

.053 .392 .091 .141 .135* .029

.023 .709 .066 .288 .061 .326

.131* .034 .013 .839 .087 .161

.138* .025 .068 .275 .063 .308

Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.009 .884 .007 .913 .082 .184

.042 .496 .210** .001 .065 .298

.063 .311 .066 .290 .125* .044

.040 .520 .224** .000 .083 .182

.005 .941 .010 .875 .032 .606

.108 .081 .066 .289 .019 .764

.039 .529 .134* .030 .042 .497

Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.075 .224 .076 .221 .025 .688

.037 .547 .252** .000 .000 .996

.110 .076 .055 .374 .024 .695

.170** .006 .170** .006 .112 .072

.106 .089 .032 .604 .119 .054

.142* .021 .058 .355 .072 .247

.057 .363 .017 .780 .051 .412

Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.028 .653 .022 .718 .010 .877

.007 .911 .136* .029 .117 .059

.117 .060 .114 .066 .062 .319

.134* .030 .167** .007 .056 .370

.073 .242 .043 .485 .044 .475

.109 .078 .068 .274 .022 .723

.084 .177 .137* .027 .078 .212

Discussing course-related problems with peers on Facebook

Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.002 .980

.083 .183

.034 .586

.097 .119

.003 .965

.062 .321

.138* .026

Asking instructor questions on Facebook

Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.025 .683

.061 .323

.024 .700

.002 .970

.038 .542

.061 .330

.041 .509

Facebook Convenience in sharing educational resources

BBS E-learning Facebook

Reviewing past articles

BBS E-learning Facebook

Interacting with other users

BBS E-learning Facebook

**

Pass time

Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed) Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

E-learning

*

Relationship maintenance

Correlations with levels of significance 0.05 (two-tailed). Correlations with levels of significance 0.01 (two-tailed).

209

B.-S. Jong et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 32 (2014) 201–211 Table 8 Correlations among the seven motives for Facebook use (Num = 261). Relationship maintenance

* **

1

Pass time .060

Virtual community

Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

Pass time

Pearson correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.060

Virtual community

Pearson correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.068 .274

.082

Entertainment

Pearson Correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.177**

.319**

.004

.000

.000

Coolness

Pearson correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.053

.047

.302**

.392

.447

.000

.013

Companionship

Pearson correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.115

.085

.227**

.081

Peer discussion

Pearson correlation Sig. (two-tailed)

.336

.336

.064 .155* .012

Companionship

.053

.115

Peer discussion .155*

.274

.004

.392

.064

.012

.108

.319**

.047

.085

.183**

.082 .108

Coolness

.177**

Relationship maintenance

1

.068

Entertainment

.000

.447

.170

.003

1

.262**

.302**

.227**

.124*

.262**

1

.154*

.191

.003

.154*

1

.487**

.159*

.487**

1

.164**

.164**

1

.000

.000

.013

.170

.000

.191

.183**

.124*

.185**

.003

.045

.003

.000

.045

.081

.185**

.000

.000 .159* .010

.010

.008

.008

Correlations with levels of significance 0.05 (two-tailed). Correlations with levels of significance 0.01 (two-tailed).

Fig. 9. Significant correlations among the seven motives for Facebook use. Dashed lines represent correlations with levels of significance p < 0.05. Thick lines represent correlations with levels of significance p < 0.01.

or roll call tomorrow. To do so, the student needs only post a message on Facebook, and once done, any Facebook friend can read the message when signed in.

This kind of scenario will seldom occur if only a few people are absent from a class. However, on average, class attendance is around 70% for students enrolled in the ICE department. In some

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extreme cases, class attendance may even drop to below 20%. This suggests that the aforementioned scenarios may often happen. As a matter of fact, there are many ‘‘Facebook scenarios’’ that may occur. When the deadline of a project approaches, the likelihood of person-to-person communications also increases. Similarly, during exam weeks, there may be ‘‘guesses of what the exam problems will be.’’ Facebook is perfectly suited for such activities. Taking all these into consideration, there is little wonder why peer discussion of educational matters was ranked fourth by subjects in terms of their motives for Facebook use. What takes place on Facebook among students enrolled in the ICE department at CYCU may not be an isolated phenomenon. Overall, 81% of subjects surveyed used Facebook to discuss course-related problems with their peers, and yet only about half were students enrolled in the ICE department. This suggests that a similar phenomenon regarding Facebook use may also exist in other universities. Even though low class attendance is not a good indication from the perspective of education, there is no doubt that Facebook has the potential to be used for educational purposes. Our results showed that 81% of subjects used the social network to discuss course-related problems with peers or sometimes academic staff, while 59% wanted to do similar things on a regular basis. Furthermore, subjects also ranked Facebook above BBS and e-learning platforms in three of four aspects related to education. The rankings of these four aspects are summarized as follows:  Convenience in sharing educational resources Facebook > e-learning platforms > BBS  Immediacy of learning what teachers posted on the Internet Facebook > BBS > e-learning platforms  Reviewing past articles on a given topic BBS > e-learning platforms > Facebook  Interactions with other users Facebook > BBS > e-learning platforms It is important to distinguish between a potential and readily usable educational platform. While e-learning platforms such as LearnBank (2007) are aimed at education, Facebook is not. Facebook is designed for people to connect with one another easily on the Internet through discussions, posts, and notifications of various types. Its principle aim is thus not education. People, including students, mainly use the social network to enhance their social connectedness. Therefore, to consider how Facebook can be used for educational purposes, we must approach the issue from the perspective of social connectedness. As Bosch (2009) states it, ‘‘Clearly, Facebook fosters micro-communities of people who share interests or partake in similar activities, and the question is whether this kind of effective social networking might be similarly extended from the personal, into the realm of the academic’’ (p. 193). The results obtained in this study point to some directions for using Facebook in education. An increasing number of courses use Facebook as a learning platform, which is acceptable in so far as it is only used for making announcements, such as quiz dates and project or homework deadlines. However, if Facebook as a learning platform were to include discussions of various topics, it may be somewhat inconvenient for students to review or browse through past articles on different subjects. The design of the ‘‘timeline’’ is such that messages with a newer status replace older ones, and as a result, uploaded multimedia materials are scattered in a point-wise fashion. This is why Facebook is not easy to use for reviewing or browsing through course-related postings. One way to make Facebook suitable for specific educational aims is to provide an API and ask students to run it on Facebook. This will unavoidably touch upon the issue of privacy, which must be taken into due consideration. In general, students are unwilling to reveal their private information (Malhotra, Kim, & Agarwal,

2004). For this reason, Facebook provides various functionalities for privacy protection, as, for example, users can choose whether to make a group public or not, thereby controlling who can see the related posts. Users can also change their default privacy settings to protect their personal information from being seen by others. However, the use of APIs on Facebook is rather different, since an API can access a user’s private information. Therefore, if instructors want students to run an API on Facebook, they should guarantee their privacy in advance (e.g., the API will only retrieve the required user records, and the retrieved information will not be released to others), which students must be willing to accept. In Taiwan, students tend to trust their instructors and teaching assistants, but for students in other countries, the situation may be quite different. 5. Conclusion Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that Facebook has educational value when there is a strong tie among classmates. When classmate relations are strong, peer discussion of educational matters is ranked fourth out of seven motives for using Facebook, ahead of virtual community, companionship, and coolness. When compared with the BBS and e-learning platforms, Facebook fares better in terms of (a) the convenience in sharing educational resources, (b) immediacy of learning what teachers posted on the Internet, and (c) interactions with other users. However, Facebook is not adapted to reviewing past articles on a certain topic. Nowadays, most people use Facebook on a daily basis to enhance their social connectedness. Some even keep their Facebook pages open on their computers and periodically check them for new events or messages. This gives Facebook a tremendous edge over e-learning platforms and BBS. However, to be truly successful in using Facebook for educational purposes, aspects of social connectedness must be considered. Mazer et al. (2007) provide an interesting example. The authors demonstrated that the self-disclosure of instructors on Facebook could affect their credibility as perceived by the students in their course. In other words, the ‘‘correct’’ way of using Facebook in education may differ from how elearning platforms are used. A reason Facebook prevails over its competitors is that it accepts and runs APIs. Compared to traditional computer games, APIs do not use elaborate multimedia effects and require less manpower and costs to develop (Shin & Shin, 2011). However, for a social network to be attractive in terms of learning, there are many factors to consider, such as the need to rapidly review different types of learning materials, including course-related discussions. Privacy is another factor to be taken into consideration: before running an API on Facebook, instructors must first reach a consensus with students about privacy protection. References Alexa (2012). Facebook.com site info. . Ammer, J. J. (1998). Peer evaluation model for enhancing writing performance of students with learning disabilities. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 14(3), 263–276. Bargh, J. A., & Schul, Y. (1980). On the cognitive benefits of teaching. Journal of Educational Psychology, 72(5), 593–604. Barnes, J. A. (1954). Class and committees in a Norwegian island parish. Human Relations February, 7(1), 39–58. Bosch, T. E. (2009). Using online social networking for teaching and learning: Facebook use at the University of Cape Town. Communication: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, 35(2), 185–200. CheckFacebook (2012). Facebook overview statistics. . Christofides, E., Muise, A., & Desmarais, S. (2009). Information disclosure and control on Facebook: Are they two sides of the same coin or two different processes? CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12(3), 341–345.

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