دانلود رایگان مقاله برداشت کارشناسی رسانه های اجتماعی در یادگیری آنها

Abstract

This study investigates undergraduate perceptions of the social media technologies (SMTs) they use in their learning. This mixed methods inquiry employed 30 semi-structured interviews and an online survey (N = 679) to explore why and how undergraduates from across disciplines view SMTs to be a meaningful part of their university learning. Findings shed new insights into student perspectives on and uses of social media, and the variety of ways in which undergraduates intentionally choose (or, choose not) to incorporate social media into their university learning in meaningful ways. Student perceptions formed an overarching theme of social media as a double-edged sword that both informs and distracts, having the potential to both help and hinder learning. Together, the interviews and the open-ended survey results demonstrate that several contextual relationships exist, underscoring the importance of considering affordances of social media for learning. Rather than taking an approach founded upon technological determinism, learning context and social media affordances become key. Undergraduate perceptions of educational interactions via social media illustrate the prominence of student-student and student-content, rather than faculty-student, interactions via social media in their learning, allowing for an updated understanding of previous educational interactions models.

8. Conclusions

Newly published research continues to emphasize a need for studies that build further understanding of students’ perspectives and uses of social media in their learning. By providing detailed analysis of student perspectives regarding social media in different learning settings (i.e., different disciplines), this study addresses several existing gaps in the literature. Indeed, much research on these issues focuses on SMTs used formally as a part of a course (i.e., incorporated into formal curriculum by instructors), rather than on student perspectives of SMTs that they themselves choose to use (or not to use) for their own learning. Notably, undergraduate perceptions of educational interactions via social media illustrate the prominence of student-student and student-content, rather than faculty-student, interactions via social media in their learning, as illustrated in the updated model of educational interactions provided. Rather than primarily outlining the benefits of social technologies, this study presents a more nuanced and complex picture of the benefits and limitations of social media as a double-edged sword that potentially helps and hinders university learning, and provides key recommendations that aim to foster the helpful and mitigate the hindering aspects of social media in learning.