Twitter's Effects on Student Learning and Social Presence Perceptions

Abstract

Social presence, the concept that individuals have a sense of others as real in mediated communication, is a pivotal concept in online interaction and learning. Social presence theory suggests that social media tools, such as Twitter, should build community among groups such as students. This could affect how much students learn. In this study, participants in a quasi-experiment (N = 76) completed supplemental class exercises for a mass communication course, either by conversing with classmates on Twitter or by individually writing essays. Participants who used Twitter had more positive perceptions of Twitter as a classroom tool, and these students had greater social comfort with their classmates. Twitter use for class discussion did not correlate with higher scores on objective questions testing students' memory of class content.Keywords: social media, social presence, teaching, TwitterMass communication educators are preparing students to use social media in their careers, so educators must wrestle with integrating social media tools into the classroom. The question of classroom social media use is particularly relevant for mass communication faculty. Social media use is not just a matter of technological innovation for the sake of pedagogy but an increasingly important professional skill for journalism and mass communication graduates. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of Twitter on students' learning and perception of social presence. In the last decade, Web services such as wikis, blogs, and podcasts have created opportunities for people to produce, seek, or share information across the globe. Consequently, communication and collaboration have become much easier and common, especially through blogging (Reinhardt, Ebner, Beham, & Costa, 2009).The word blog calls to mind a specific site maintained and updated by one person, but microblogging is a popular form that brings together the comments of many people. Microblogging usually consists of short and succinct messages to share news, post status updates, and interact with like-minded people. Facebook and Twitter are two popular weblogs with millions of members who produce and share information regularly. Microblogging has witnessed a tremendous growth in the last three years and is noted for its fast exchanges of ideas, thoughts, and information (Ebner & Schiefner, 2008).Twitter was established in 2006 and has grown exponentially. The site went from having 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 40.4 million in December 2011 (Compete, 2011). Users can send tweets of up to 140 characters that can be posted on the Twitter website or applications for mobile phones and computer desktops. Twitter allows users to follow the posts of others, so users can use this microblogging platform for better networking and sharing of knowledge with friends and followers (Java, Song, Finin, & Tseng, 2007). Twitter also allows users to attach clickable tags to tweets so that the site's content is searchable and linked by topics. This technique has proved extremely useful when contributing and sharing information about a specific topic (Stevens, 2008).Twitter has been used for educational purposes, as well, and studies have explored whether out-of-classroom interactions significantly enhance students' learning, interpersonal relationships, and perception of social presence (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2010; Rinaldo, Tapp, & Laverie, 2011; Sweetser, 2008). Social presence is a conceptual framework that explains the capability of people to project themselves as real in mediated communication. Social presence is defined as a communicator's sense of awareness of other participants in an online community, and it plays a pivotal role in computer-mediated communications and online learning.This study examines how students respond to using Twitter in a classroom assignment. It measures students' performances on test questions, perceptions of social presence, and perceptions of Twitter's usefulness in the classroom. …