Caroline Haythornthwaite

1. Social Media Use in Teaching:
Results from a questionnaire on
use in higher education
@hthwaite
@gruzd
@drewpaulin
@_sgilbert_
@smlabTO
Caroline Haythornthwaite Anatoliy
Gruzd
Drew Paulin, Sarah Gilbert Marc Esteve del
Valle
Research funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of
Canada.
Learning Analytics for the Social Media Age. PIs: Anatoliy Gruzd, Caroline

2. Transformations in learning
Redefining e-learning
A transformative
movement for learning
in a networked world
A transformation in
who learns what, from
whom, where, when,
and under what
circumstances.
Motivating questions for this
study
 How are social media being
used, integrated, or otherwise
slipping into the norms of
university teaching?
 How prevalent is use of SM in
teaching?
 What are instructors doing with
SM in teaching?
 What motivates instructors to
use SM in teaching?
 What facilitators or barriers
exist regarding using SM in

3. Potential reasons for using SM in
teaching and theoretical base
Three main reasons
 Exposing students to practices of the
expected future work and communication
settings;
 Extending the learning environment to
engage with sources and views outside the
classroom setting;
 Promoting a collaborative approach to
learning that involves learning with others,
building knowledge communities and greater
reflection
Played out against a background of adoption of
innovation in teaching and HE

4. Exposure to practices
 Experiential learning, the ‘lived experience’
connecting learning activities to the
complexity of real world practice and the
many ways this can influence understanding
(Dewey; Bruce, 2010)
 Observing practice as a way to gain
knowledge even without participating
(Bandura, 2001; Lave & Wenger, 1991)
 Learning how ‘to be’ a practitioner within a
member of a community, building its
knowledge and practice base (Wenger, 1998;
Becker et al, 1961; Haythornthwaite & Andrews,
2011; Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Jenkins et al,
2006; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006; DeSanctis &

5. Extending the learning
environment
 Networked Learning
◦ Harnessing ICTs for teaching and learning
(Jones, 2015; Carvahlo & Goodyear, 2014;
Jones & de Laat, 2016)
◦ Capitalizing on use of ICT for making
connections between learners and other
learners, teachers, communities and resources
(Jones, 2015)
 Community-embedded learners
◦ Engaged with the combined set of local, online,
and distance communities (Kazmer, 2007)
 Connectivism
◦ Making connections with humans but also with
resources, sites, media, etc. (Siemens, 2005;
Downes, 2006)

6. Promoting collaborative
learning
 Connection among learners and actors
in the learning environment
◦ Networked learning, connectivism,
knowledge-building communities
◦ Collaborative learning and Computer-
supported collaborative learning (Bruffee,
1993; Koschmann, 1996; Miyake, 2007)
◦ Social network analytic perspectives on
learning (Haythornthwaite, de Laat & Schreurs,
2016; Dawson, 2010; Joksimovic et al, 2015)
 Teacher as an important interactant
◦ Vygotsky re zone of proximal development
◦ Garrison & Anderson (2003) re teacher
presence

7. Questionnaire
Design to gain info about
 instructors’ use of social
media in general
 application of social media
in their teaching.
27 questions in two main
parts, with some questions
having multiple options to
choose from
 Part 1: general information
about use of social media
and use in any aspect of
their teaching
 Part 2: consider a
particular course and to
answer questions about
social media us in that
course
 Demographics
Deployment
 Final version made public in
March 2014 and remained
open to contribution to
October, 2014
 Recruitment through
◦ personal emails to known or
recommended contacts
◦ email to academic mailing lists
◦ distribution of information at
conferences and presentations
◦ Twitter postings to relevant
conference hashtags
Incentive
 Option of being entered in a
random draw for one of three
iPads minis (part 2 considered
optional re this draw)

8. Respondent demographics
 333 respondents answered about general use. Of those who
gave demographic info:
◦ Gender: 60% women
◦ Age: 50% 25-40 years of age, 41% were 41-60, and 9% over 60
◦ Country: Primarily English speaking countries:
 United States (45%), Canada (20%), United Kingdom (6%), Australia (6%),
 followed by European Union (16%), Brazil (3%), and 1% from a variety of
countries, e.g., Sweden, Turkey, New Zealand, Israel.
◦ Disciplines:
 Journalism, media studies and communication disciplines (19%),
 Information Science (9%), Education (8%), Computer Sciences (8%),
Sociology (6%),
 further variety of fields (e.g., Library and Museum studies (5%), Cultural and
Ethnic Studies (1%))
 Teaching experience: number of courses ftf, blended or
online:
◦ None: 15;
1 to 10 courses: 117
11 or more: 200
◦ 25 had taught a MOOC
Courses given online, blended, and face-to-face
Fully online Blended Fully face-to-
face
0 137 86 25
1 to 10 107 151 118
11 or more 46 59 179

9. DESCRIPTIVE STATS

10. Overall use of SM: Consume, Contribute

11. Use in teaching

12. Past, present and expected
future use in teaching

13. Use inside or outside the LMS

14. What is the most useful
SM for teaching?
 78 no answer; 5 indicated ‘no’ useful tool; 6 indicated ‘many’ useful but did
not specify one
 Matched by word in text answer (‘Discussion’ and ‘forums’ combined here; for
‘sharing’ and ‘LMS’, manually coded based on the answer if the response had
not been categorized under any other code)
 If 2 types indicated, both counted for total of 247 votes for useful tools
Blog Twitter YouTube Facebook Discussion
and/or forums
54 47 32 26 22
Wiki Google docs Wordpress Sharing/
document
sharing
LMS
16 15 10 8 9
No Useful tool Many useful
5 6
Total coded No answer
245 78

15. How are instructors using SM in
their teaching?
 Content analysis of qualitative comments for 2
questions
◦ Re: “What is the most useful social media tool you
have used for teaching?”,
◦ [1] “give a brief explanation of how you use the
above tool in your course(s)”.
◦ Re: “Consider one specific course you have recently
taught where you used any social media tool for
teaching”
◦ [2] “How have d social media in this course?”
◦ Codes determined by 2 coders; then full set of
answers coded by 2 authors, and 1 other reconciling
differences
 Factor analysis
◦ Combined codes for the two questions used as input
for a factor analysis

16. Codes of use of SM in
teaching
 Sharing (S1 and S2). Sharing
content – by instructors to students
(S1) or to facilitate content sharing
by students (S2).
 Discussing (DC). Provide a forum
to discuss course-based topics.
 Organizing (O1 and O2). Facilitate
organization of the course for the
instructor (O1) or by the instructor to
facilitate organization for the
students (O2).
 Reflective learning (RL). Using
social media deliberately to create a
means for students to reflect on their
work and/or progress.
 Peer interaction (PI). Enhance
student-to-student interaction
relating to each other's work and to
foster peer-to-peer instruction and
learning.
 Supporting collaboration (SC).
Provide students with a means of
working together on shared projects.
 Reaching outside the class (RO).
Provide learning experiences
outside the classroom setting,
e.g., creating networks between
students and professionals
 Learning about social media use
through practice (LP). Provide
experience using social media tools.
 Discovering (D1 and D2). Discover
relevant information resources either
by the instructor (D1) or by
instructors to help students to
discover information (D2).
 Fostering the learning community
(FC). Foster community
development among learners.

17. Distribution of uses of SM in
Teaching

18. Factor analysis: Uses of SM in
teaching
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis; Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization; Rotation converged in 12 iterations

19. Interpreting the factors
Factor 1: Facilitating Engagement
 Use oriented to facilitating student
participation, interaction and reflection;
 Use focused on enhancing student
learning behaviors.
Factor 2: Organization for Teaching
 Use oriented to facilitating the
organization of the activity of teaching,
including course organizing,
dissemination of content, and organizing
interaction through discussion
 Use directed to management of teaching
practice.
Factor 3: Reaching Outside
 Use to connect the class experience to
the knowledge and work worlds,
resources beyond the institution or
classroom, e.g., open online resources,
news, etc., and learning to use social
media for work and communication
outside educational use.
 Factor 4: Enhancing Student Learning
◦ Use to enhance further evaluation of class
content, supporting collaboration and
reflective learning through group work and a
group way into reflection.
◦ Moving the locus of action from the teacher-
student relationship to the student, and
student-student relationship, for reflection and
further engagement with the course
materials.
 Factor 5: Building a Community of
Practice
◦ Use to foster community, building
communities of practice through use of social
media.
 Factor 6: Discovery
◦ Use for information discovery by instructor or
by students
◦ NB. Cautious interpretation
 locus of control for information gatekeeping,
either maintained by the instructor or granted
to the students.

20. FACILITATORS AND
BARRIERS

21. How do you stay informed about effective teaching
and learning strategies for the use of social media?
NB. Coded only in one category. Coded to ‘closest’ so those who have input
from friends and go to seminars are coded under staying informed through

22. Barriers
 Time
◦ Instructor or student don't have the time to learn, add, or grade
SM; includes grading - assumption is that they don't have the time
to learn how to effectively grade student
 Ethics
◦ Instructor worries about ethical conflicts associated with using SM
such as privacy, security, advertisement, and students' feelings
about SM use
 Tool
◦ An aspect of the SM itself, e.g., can it provide functionality to help
students learn, or the design of SM tools make it difficult to use
 Support
◦ Lack of support: technological (e.g. wifi access); institutional (e.g.
admin); and student (i.e., they don't want to use it)
 Ability
◦ Students and/or instructor have difficulty using/learning SM

23. Summary: Revisiting the three expected
reasons for using SM in teaching
 Exposing students to
practices
◦ Factor 3: Reaching Outside
 Extending the learning
environment
◦ Factor 6: Discovery
 Promoting collaboration,
learning with others,
greater reflection
◦ Factor 1: Facilitating
Engagement
◦ Factor 4: Enhancing Student
Learning
◦ Factor 5: Building a
Community of Practice
 Other
◦ Factor 2: Organization for
Teaching
 Facilitators
◦ Other users
◦ Institutional help
◦ Mass media
 Motivation
◦ High SM use, mass
media use suggests
early adopter
profiles

24. Questions
Upcoming UK
venues for
SM and
Learning
Social Media and Society
Conference - #SMSociety
Goldsmiths, London,
July 11-13, 2016
Papers due Jan. 15, 2016
Forthcoming:
Haythornthwaite,
Andrews, Fransman
& Meyers (2106).
Handbook of
E-learning Research,
2nd edition. SAGE.
Including chapters on
• Social Media & Learning,
Paulin & Gilbert
• Social Network Analytic
Perspective On Learning,
Haythornthwaite, de Laat,
& Schreurs
• Pedagogies in virtual
worlds, Savin-Baden &
Tombs
2nd edition
in 2016