See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/270650264

Evaluating the use of Facebook to increase student engagement and

understanding in lecture-based classes

Article  in  Higher Education · February 2015

DOI: 10.1007/s10734-014-9776-3

CITATIONS READS

48 771

5 authors, including:

Benjamin J Dyson Kristin Vickers

University of Sussex Ryerson University
52 PUBLICATIONS   436 CITATIONS    23 PUBLICATIONS   328 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Sara Cowan Adrianna Tassone

Ryerson University Wilfrid Laurier University
2 PUBLICATIONS   51 CITATIONS    3 PUBLICATIONS   54 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Benjamin J Dyson on 13 April 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Evaluating the use of Facebook to increase
student engagement and understanding in
lecture-based classes

Benjamin Dyson, Kristin Vickers, John

Turtle, Sara Cowan & Adrianna Tassone

Higher Education
The International Journal of Higher
Education Research

ISSN 0018-1560
Volume 69
Number 2

High Educ (2015) 69:303-313

DOI 10.1007/s10734-014-9776-3

1 23
Your article is protected by copyright and all
rights are held exclusively by Springer Science
+Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint
is for personal use only and shall not be self-
archived in electronic repositories. If you wish
to self-archive your article, please use the
accepted manuscript version for posting on
your own website. You may further deposit
the accepted manuscript version in any
repository, provided it is only made publicly
available 12 months after official publication
or later and provided acknowledgement is
given to the original source of publication
and a link is inserted to the published article
on Springer's website. The link must be
accompanied by the following text: "The final
publication is available at link.springer.com”.

1 23
 Author's personal copy
High Educ (2015) 69:303–313
DOI 10.1007/s10734-014-9776-3

Evaluating the use of Facebook to increase student

engagement and understanding in lecture-based classes

Benjamin Dyson • Kristin Vickers • John Turtle • Sara Cowan •

Adrianna Tassone

Published online: 7 June 2014

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract Both lecture delivery and Facebook use are ubiquitous aspects of higher
education from staff and student points-of-view, respectively. An attempt was made to
integrate the two by setting up a Facebook group and delivering contemporary news stories
in preparation for in-lecture discussion in a large-scale (1,200 students across 5 sections)
Introduction to Psychology class. Each section experienced two-thirds of the class with
Facebook intervention and one-third without, thereby each section served as its own
control group. Overall, Facebook intervention did not yield higher self-report of course
engagement or understanding for those portions of the course. Only those individuals who
never viewed the Facebook postings reported lower engagement and understanding of the
in-lecture discussion, in addition to a lower appreciation of the link between the Facebook
content and the lecture material. Our data suggest that successful integration of social
media into the classroom is a challenging one and the relative success or failure of these
interventions may stand or fall on the basis of a complex interaction between a number of
factors including the timing of content delivery, the integration of social media content
with course assessment and the students’ own perspective on using social media for
academic purposes.

Keywords Social media
Facebook
Student engagement
Student understanding

Large-scale teaching

Introduction

‘‘Given that Facebook continues to be popular among college students, and that
universities are interested in engaging and retaining students, it is important for those

B. Dyson (&)
K. Vickers
J. Turtle
S. Cowan
A. Tassone

Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
e-mail: ben.dyson@psych.ryerson.ca

123
 Author's personal copy
304 High Educ (2015) 69:303–313

working in higher education to familiarize themselves with Facebook (and other such
technologies) and to design and support interventions that meet students where they
are, in order to help them get to where they are going.’’ (Junco 2012, p. 170).
Within the sphere of research on teaching and learning, lectures are considered a
ubiquitous but far from ideal mode of delivery (e.g., Huxham 2005). Furthermore, many
lecture-based classes are getting larger as university enrolments increase, and are expected
to keep increasing. On top of that, students coming to university now are part of the
‘‘millennial generation,’’ having grown up in a culture where the relationship between
interpersonal and electronic spheres is increasingly blurred. Equally ubiquitous for stu-
dents, then, is the use of social media, and this use has begun to punctuate the classroom.
Informal observations suggest that some students are not paying the sort of rapt attention
(or even faking it) that perhaps we once expected. Rather, they are online in class,
sometimes accessing the material for that lecture, but often accessing email, entertainment
and shopping sites, YouTube, and other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. More
formal research supports that idea that such technological availability is not beneficial for
the classroom. For example, Wei et al. (2012) reported negative relationships between text
messaging in the classroom and both self-regulation and sustained attention. Wood et al.
(2011) observed somewhat poorer memory performance for in-class material when stu-
dents were multi-tasking with Facebook and MSN (Microsoft Network) relative to a
simpler paper-and-pencil note taking condition. Importantly, familiarity with these tech-
nologies did not significantly diminish the observed memory loss, suggesting that the
presence of technology may be a pervasive problem.
Two routes to ameliorating this problem currently suggest themselves. One option
would be to block students’ ability to access the internet in class, and/or prohibit laptops
and smartphones altogether (e.g., Richtel 2011). Such an approach is supported by data
suggesting that the use of such technology (for example, text messaging during class) is
negatively related to sustained attention, and sustained attention itself positively related to
academic performance (Wei et al. 2012). The second option would be utilize students’
familiarity with social media sites by incorporating them into lectures and the following
serves as one attempt to operationalize and evaluate how this might be done.
Of course we are not the first to look at how this might be accomplished. Schroeder
et al. (2010) reviewed 20 social-software initiatives in the U.K. and, through a strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, offer valuable ideas regarding the
technical development and implementation of social media in the classroom. They note
that, in addition to the potential for improved learning, there are other prospective and
possibly more subtle benefits, such as helping to foster social relationships among students,
and enhancing communication between students and professors (teachers use social media
too; Hew 2011). In addition to the Schroeder et al. (2010) review, several examples of
social media intervention are also available, although the data are mixed both in terms of
the social media used and the outcome measured. For example, Deed and Edwards (2011)
considered the role of blogging as an element of active learning and expressed concern
regarding the suitability of this technique in the promotion of critical thinking. In contrast,
Colbert et al. (2007) used an internet-based forum dedicated to student-generated questions
in a large first-year biology class. They found that about 80 % of students asked at least
one question, 95 % of those students read the professor’s response, 75 % read questions
posted by other students in the class, and about 60 % overall reported that the intervention
facilitated their understanding of the course material.

123
 Author's personal copy
High Educ (2015) 69:303–313 305

Proprietary social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have also received
empirical attention (e.g., Kassens-Noor 2012; Rinaldo et al. 2011; Wilson et al. 2012). To
take one example, Junco et al. (2011) looked at the effect of using Twitter in large classes,
using the platform for a vast number of course activities including class reminders, book
discussion, study group organization, student support, four required assignments and two
optional assignments (Junco et al. 2011, p. 122–123). Their results showed that the
intervention led to significantly higher levels of engagement and better grades, and dis-
cussed the spinoff benefits of professors taking a more active role in communicating with
students. The Junco et al. (2011) study shows a positive social media outcome, although
the broad use of Twitter in this context precludes specific suggestions for more targeted
social media interventions. The current literature also suggests that the social media
platform Facebook, with over 1 billion monthly users worldwide (Tam 2013), is a ubiq-
uitous aspect in students’ lives (Wilson et al. 2012), but also one that appears negativity
correlated with academic performance. For example, Kirschner and Karpinski (2010, cited
in Hew 2011) showed that Facebook users had both lower GPAs and spent less time on
study relative to non-users. A more recent paper by Junco (2012) however reveals a more
complex interaction between Facebook and academic performance contingent on the types
of measures used; the frequency of Facebook use was negatively correlated with student
engagement when the content of Facebook interaction was playing games or friend
checking, but was positively correlated when the content revolved around post com-
menting. Against this, additional data extol the potential virtues of adopting Facebook as a
virtual educational forum over and above similar forums provided by the host institution
such as Moodle, Wimba Classroom and BlackBoard (Hollyhead et al. 2012; Hurt et al.
2012). In these examples, pre-existing familiarity, access and socialization are thought to
help foster the adoption of Facebook as communicative tool in higher education.
The current study attempts to take Facebook as one example of an asynchronous dis-
cussion forum (e.g., Hollyhead et al. 2012; Yang 2008), whereby course-relevant material
is made available both outside class time and space. Specifically, during intervention
weeks, a contemporary news story relevant to the course material of an Introduction to
Psychology class was posted on Facebook days prior to the lecture. Questions, discussion
and comments related to the materials were reviewed at the start of the relevant class as a
way of establishing the real-world importance of the subject about to be introduced. From
an andragogical point-of-view, this approach had a number of attractive features. First, the
delivery of class-relevant content across multiple time points promotes distributed learn-
ing. Here, we were inspired by the sizable literature indicating the benefits of spaced rather
than massed study (see Son and Simon 2012, for a review). One of the reasons for the
success of spaced study is an increase in contextual variability (Raaijmakers 2003, cited in
Son and Simon 2012), and introducing concepts in a social media news story format prior
to class and then revisiting that material during class seemed to be one way to achieve this
goal. Second, the ability to discuss course content outside the classroom and in an anon-
ymous manner potentially resolves some of the interpersonal issues that can inhibit
interaction in class (Caldwell 2007). Third, with the specific use of Facebook (as opposed
to university-based platforms such as Blackboard; e.g., Knight 2010) we were able to bring
the content to the students rather than have the students come to us (Junco 2012).
In terms of measurement, we were particularly concerned with student engagement and
understanding in the course. One priority was to increase the likelihood of adopting this
intervention amongst several faculty teaching individual sections of the same undergrad-
uate course. We felt it important that not only the delivery but also the assessment of the
intervention should not significantly compromise the limited time available or the

123
 Author's personal copy
306 High Educ (2015) 69:303–313

academic freedom of individual teachers. Although a large literature exists on how to

measure student engagement, consensus regarding operational definition of this construct
has proven elusive and diverse measures have been advanced (for a review, see University
Partners 2011). For example, engagement scales have been used (e.g., the National Survey
of Student Engagement; Kuh 2002) as well as single-item measures (e.g., Heiberger and
Harper 2008, cited in Junco et al. 2012). Moreover, we were also sensitive to the ecological
validity of engagement (and understanding) from the students’ point-of-view, acknowl-
edging: ‘‘…a gap between what teachers consider engagement in learning and what stu-
dents consider engagement in learning’’ (University Partners 2011, p. 4). Thus any lack of
sensitivity in our measures might be compensated by the adoption of our intervention in all
sections of the same undergraduate course and hence the availability of a larger sample
size.
In sum, our hypotheses were that student course engagement and understanding would
be higher during the weeks when the Facebook intervention was running, relative to when
it was not. Additionally, we expected levels of course engagement and understanding to be
higher in individuals who reported interacting with the Facebook materials to greater rather
than lesser extent.

Methods

All students in Introduction to Psychology (PSY102) during the Fall 2012 semester were
eligible to take part in the study. All procedures and materials were approved by the
university Research Ethics Board (REB) prior to testing. Approximately 1,200 students
split across 5 sections initially enrolled in the course, and 1,025 finished it. In an attempt to
ensure parity in student experience, all sections experienced the Facebook intervention but
at various times during the semester. As a result of the use of three exams in PSY102, the
course was divided into thirds, and all sections experienced two-thirds of the course
involving a Facebook intervention and one-third which was Facebook free (see Fig. 1). All
sections were sent standardized instructions regarding our intention to test the effectiveness
of social media as an in-class aid, and students who wished to take part in the study were
asked to join their course’s Facebook group and post comments, either with an existing
Facebook account or using a new account, which could be anonymous (i.e., not identified
with their legal name).
The Facebook intervention had two components. First, and at least 2 days prior to class,
a news story was posted on Facebook relating to the content of PSY102 to be covered that
particular week (e.g., an individual surviving an accidental spear gun bolt through the head
in conjunction with the coverage of Biological Processes). The topic and content of the
news story were discussed between the authors prior to its posting on Facebook. The
majority of on-line interaction however was carried out by teaching assistants (SC and AT)
rather than PSY102 faculty (see Yang 2008). The intention here was to foster a supportive
environment and increase the likelihood that students felt they could integrate personal and
academic spheres without formal monitoring by their section leaders (c.f, Hew 2011).
Second, there was a short (10–15 min) discussion of the Facebook news story that typically
occurred at the beginning of class. This was delivered by one of the authors (SC) across all
times and all sections to ensure some standardization of delivery. The in-class portion
recapped the Facebook content, provided a summary of the comments posted on the
relevant Facebook wall, and generated discussion via additional questions. If class par-
ticipation was not forthcoming, the deliverer and instructor discussed the questions and/or

123
 Author's personal copy
High Educ (2015) 69:303–313 307

Fig. 1 Schematic of the study FIRST SECOND THIRD

design. All sections of an
Introduction to Psychology
PSY102_011
course (PSY102) experienced
two-thirds of the course
involving a Facebook
intervention and one-third which PSY102_021
was Facebook free. In this way,
each section served as their own
control group PSY102_031

PSY102_041

PSY102_051

No Facebook Facebook

shared impressions or anecdotes to stimulate interest and encourage student involvement,

which was generally effective at stimulating discussion. During non-intervention weeks of
each section, there was no Facebook material posted, no in-class discussion, and class
began as usual. In these respects, the nature of the intervention and the specific posting of
news stories to prepare students for forthcoming lectures was consistent with the flipped
classroom approach (see Bishop and Verleger 2013, for a review of the literature).
Quantitative measurement was conducted via a short anonymous questionnaire admin-
istered at the end of each third of the course for each section. On a 7-point Likert scale, all
students (both intervention and non-intervention groups) were asked to rate ‘How much did
this third of the course engage you?’ and ‘How much did you understand the materials from
this third of the course?’ Students who just completed an intervention block were additionally
invited to answer four more questions: a categorization of how often they looked at the
Facebook news stories prior to class (no weeks, some weeks, all weeks) and then three
additional 7-point Likert scale questions regarding ‘How much did the in-class news story
discussions engage you?’ ‘How much did you understand the in-class news story discus-
sions?’ and ‘How much did the in-class news story discussion help with your understanding of
the rest of the course material?’ Questionnaires were only included in analyses if the short
survey had been completed (a) in full and (b) appropriately relative to the current intervention
status of the specific section. Of the returned questionnaires, 1,392 met these criteria.

Results

To test the effects of the Facebook intervention on overall course engagement and
understanding, questionnaire data were submitted to separate Facebook intervention (off,
on) by course time (first, second, third) between-participants ANOVAs (see Fig. 2). For
engagement, there was no main effect of intervention, F (1, 1,386) = 0.64, p = .424,
g2p \ .001, nor an interaction between intervention 9 time, F (2, 1,386) = 0.67, p = .511,

123
 Author's personal copy
308 High Educ (2015) 69:303–313

g2p = .001. A time main effect, F (2, 1,386) = 6.37, p = .002, g2p = .009, revealed
engagement to be significantly higher for the third portion of the course, relative to the first
and second portions (Tukey’s HSD; p \ .05). Similar effects were found with respect to
overall course understanding: the absence of a main effect of intervention, F (1,
1,386) = 2.71, p = .100, g2p = .002, no interaction between intervention 9 time F (2,
1,386) = 0.65, p = .521, g2p = .001, but a main effect of time, F (2, 1,386) = 17.75,
p \ .001, g2p = .025, such that understanding was highest again in the third portion of the
course. The absence of an interaction between intervention and course time indicates that
PSY102 students showed an overall difference in course engagement and understanding at
the end of the course, regardless of when they received the intervention during the course.
Consideration was then given to the frequencies with which students exposed them-
selves to our Facebook posts on weeks when the intervention was active (see Table 1).
With v2(4) = 17.09, p = .002, / = .14, the exposure distribution was not deemed equal
across cells and as is clear from Table 1, very few students engaged with the Facebook
stories during all weeks of their intervention phases. To test whether students’ exposure to
the Facebook intervention affected their engagement with and understanding of the in-class
discussion of the Facebook materials, as well as their subsequent understanding of the
course materials, questionnaire data from intervention blocks were submitted to separate
exposure (all weeks, some weeks, no weeks) by course time (first, second, third) between-
participants ANOVAs (see Fig. 3). With respect to in-class discussion engagement, there
was a significant main effect of exposure, F (2, 866) = 19.29, p \ .001, g2p = .043 only:
time main effect F (2, 866) = 0.25, p = .778, g2p = .001, exposure 9 time interaction,
F (4, 866) = 2.05, p = .085, g2p = .009. Tukey’s HSD test (p \ .05) revealed students
who did not reportedly interact with the Facebook site in any way (no weeks) showed
lower engagement (3.72) than those who engaged some (4.48) and all (4.27) weeks. With
respect to in-class discussion understanding, there was a main effect of exposure, F (2,
866) = 14.94, p \ .001, g2p = .033, time F (2, 866) = 5.65, p = .004, g2p = .013, and a
significant interaction F(4, 866] = 2.44, p = .046, g2p = .011. As shown in Fig. 3, dif-
ferences were only statistically significant in the comparison between some and no weeks
for the second (5.19 and 4.58, respectively) and third (5.26 and 4.21, respectively) portion
of the course. Finally, with respect to the Facebook material facilitating the course
material, there was a main effect of exposure, F (2, 866) = 41.63, p \ .001, g2p = .088,
but no main effect of time F (2, 866) = 0.15, p = .858, g2p \ .001, nor an interaction
between group 9 time F (4, 866) = 0.86, p = .491, g2p = .004. Similar to the findings for
engagement, students who did not interact with the Facebook site in any way (no weeks)
reported that the in-class discussion helped less with understanding the course material
(3.44) than those who engaged some (4.39) and all (4.70) weeks.

Discussion

The current study set out to evaluate one implementation of Facebook in the classroom.
Incorporating five sections of an Introductory Psychology class, news stories posted on
Facebook and in-class discussion of those stories were delivered across two-thirds of the
course, while the remaining third of the course served as a control period where no
intervention took place. We were able to answer two questions using this approach. First,
we were interested in whether the use of social media in the classroom impacted students’
engagement with and understanding of the course materials. Although we found a sig-
nificant difference in both self-reported engagement and understanding in the final third of

123
 Author's personal copy
High Educ (2015) 69:303–313 309

Fig. 2 a Self-reported course engagement and b self-reported course understanding as a function of

Facebook intervention (off, on) and course time (first, second, third). Errors bars represent standard errors

Table 1 Number of question-

Intervention off Intervention on
naires analysed as a function of
week, intervention and level of All weeks Some weeks No weeks
self-reported exposure
Course time
First 262 21 105 134
Second 46 27 118 203
Third 109 11 73 183

the course, this did not interact with the intervention. Therefore, in this specific context the
use of Facebook did not impact on global measures of course appreciation. Second, we
were interested in whether the frequency of contact with the Facebook group impacted
students’ engagement and understanding of the course materials (cf., Junco 2012). Here,
the data suggest that only the lack of interaction with our novel Facebook group led to
lower self-report scores in engagement, understanding, and appreciation of the relationship
between the on-line and in-class materials. Were those students who reported consistent
interaction with our Facebook group already actively commenting and creating content on
their personal Facebook account (Junco 2012)? Further research would do well to assess
and, ideally, control for Facebook usage prior to experimentation.

123
 Author's personal copy
310 High Educ (2015) 69:303–313

Fig. 3 a Self-reported engagement and b understanding of the Facebook related in-class discussion and
c facilitation of the course materials, as a function of exposure level (all weeks, some weeks, no weeks) and
course time (first, second, third). Errors bars represent standard errors

One striking feature of the data was the low frequency of students who self-reported
looking at the Facebook new stories every week, and consideration should be given as to
why this might be the case and how these frequencies are to be improved if educators wish
to integrate Facebook into the classroom. In terms of how to get students to use Facebook
more in an academic context, a number of testable ideas suggest themselves. First, the
timing of the posting and subsequent in-class delivery of the Facebook content may be

123
 Author's personal copy
High Educ (2015) 69:303–313 311

crucial. We approached the Facebook material in the current study as a way to engage
students in the lead-up to class (cf., distributed learning; Son and Simon 2012) and also as a
way to begin each week’s session in an interactive and contemporary way. An alternative
route would be to deliver the Facebook material in-class not at the start of the current
session but at the next session as a way of summarizing the previous week’s content and
allowing students time to consolidate the information. A second possibility is that students
may have set up separate Facebook accounts in the interests of anonymity, thereby
bypassing the pre-existing accounts that at least three quarters of all college students have
(cf. Junco 2012). However, there is a tension between the use of Facebook for both non-
academic and academic purposes, and it is possible that students are unwilling to integrate
these two domains on the same social media platform due to these very privacy issues
(Hew 2011). Consequently, it is possible that a separate platform such as an independent
blog (Deed and Edwards 2011) or use of the discussion board feature on Blackboard would
work just as well, if not better, than software that is used predominately for communicating
between friends (Wilson et al. 2012; although see Hollyhead et al. 2012, Hurt et al. 2012) 1.
Third, some students may have perceived the Facebook materials as extra work to be done
in the course for no extra credit. This could be easily remedied by either awarding course
credit for Facebook postings, and/or, including examination questions on the on-line
materials. Obviously, though, this provides external rather than internal motivation to
engage with the materials, the former commensurate with the principles of passive rather
than active learning (Prosser and Trigwell 1999). Fourth, increased presence of the course
leader on Facebook could additionally increase students’ engagement with respect to
academic purposes, although additional concerns have been raised when students and
teachers interact on this platform (Mazer et al. 2007).
Although other measurements of engagement and understanding are available (e.g.,
Junco et al. 2012; Kuh 2002; University Partners 2011), we felt the receipt of subjective
student feedback directly following class was more useful in serving as a first pass in
evaluating the Facebook intervention. It is worth restating that the intervention was con-
ducted across several sections of the course with different section leaders and we felt that
brevity of delivery and assessment increased the likelihood that such a study would be
adopted. However, the future use of anonymised personal identifiers during data collection
(such as favourite song; Dyson 2008) would also be useful in tracking students’ responses
across the semester, thereby allowing for a within-participant analysis of the classroom
intervention. The use of between-participants analysis for at least some repeated measures
data in the current study will have increased our error term, and thus our findings assuming

1
Such comments were supported in a focus group that was run after the project had ended (a similar focus
group was run before the project to glean the attitudes of students regarding the project). There were
comments regarding Facebook as an easily available platform for discussion: ‘‘I am already on Facebook so
I don’t need to go to a new website or do any searching, it’s easy because I am already there’’ and ‘‘The
notification from the group served as a reminder that there was an article to read for class when I was on
Facebook normally. I could connect with my peers.’’ (c.f., Hurt et al. 2012). However, comments were also
expressed suggesting that Facebook may not have been the best medium due to the combination of personal
and academic spheres. These concerns included: ‘‘Some people simply do not like Facebook because they
feel it does not protect their privacy’’ and ‘‘It is easy to get sidetracked on Facebook even if you signed on to
read the articles for school.’’ In response to the question of how to improve the project in the future, students
in the focus group vocalized a variety of divergent ideas, ranging from not using Facebook: ‘‘For me the
only problem is with Facebook- I see Facebook as being for entertainment and not for school. Maybe using
BlackBoard (BB) would be more contained and more professional. I just don’t think that Facebook is very
secure’’ to having participation on the Facebook site form a portion of the course mark: ‘‘I would like it to be
marked because it is an easy way to get a mark and to show the instructors that you are participating.’’

123
 Author's personal copy
312 High Educ (2015) 69:303–313

independence may be too conservative (Howell 1992). It should also be a future goal to
compare these self-report measures with objective measures of academic success such as
class grade and GPA, and to test the assumption that increasing levels of student
engagement do eventually translate into successful university performance (cf., Hardy
et al. 2003). A final limitation of this research is its reliance on cross-sectional findings
(Facebook participation and course engagement assessed at the same time points), which
prevents ascertainment of causality. Students who are less engaged in general may report
both lack of engagement on self-report measures and also be unwilling to participate in an
optional course component. An important question for future research is thus how to
maximize student engagement to assist those students who are currently disinterested.
In summary, our pilot data suggest that successful integration of Facebook into the
classroom is a challenging one and the relative success or failure of these interventions
may stand or fall on the basis of a complex interaction between a number of factors (cf.
Kassens-Noor 2012; Yang 2008). It also remains an open question as to whether such
social media should be integrated into the classroom at all, with some classrooms adopting
a network- or computer-free environment placing the emphasis back on physical as
opposed to virtual interactions (Richtel 2011). While one study cannot provide a definitive
answer to which approach yields the most effective approach to social media, we hope that
the justification for our approach is clear such that it can be considered against other data.
Moreover, rather than consider different forms of virtual environment in competition with
one another (e.g., Hollyhead et al. 2012) or to put different implementations of the same
social media in competition with one another (Twitter; e.g., Junco et al. 2012), we believe
that a critical comparison remains the presence versus absence of social media interven-
tion. That is, although the adoption of such technology in the classroom may be beneficial,
comparison with a no-technology (‘waiting list’) condition is critical if the basic effect is to
be established. The continued evaluation of such schemes in addition to the clear report of
their instantiation will help educational institutions and instructors answer one of the most
pressing current questions in curriculum design.

Acknowledgments The research was funded by a Ryerson Learning and Teaching Enhancement Fund.
Thanks go to section leaders Alba Agostino, Brad A. Meisner and Stephen Want and the students of PSY102
for their participation in this project. We would also like to thank Pearson Education for support in
establishing the post-study focus group and also two anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments
regarding earlier versions of manuscript

References

Bishop, J. L., & Verleger, M. A. (2013). The flipped classroom: A survey of the research. In ASEE National
Conference Proceedings, Atlanta, GA.
Caldwell, J. E. (2007). Clickers in the large classroom: Current research and best-practice tips. CBE Life
Sciences Education, 6, 9–120.
Colbert, J. T., Olson, J. K., & Clough, M. P. (2007). Using the web to encourage student-generated questions
in large-format introductory biology classes. CBE Life Sciences Education, 6, 42–48.
Deed, C., & Edwards, A. (2011). Unrestricted student blogging: Implications for active learning in a virtual
text-based environment. Active Learning in Higher Education, 12, 11–21.
Dyson, B. J. (2008). Assessing small-scale interventions in large-scale teaching: A general methodology and
preliminary data. Active Learning in Higher Education, 9, 265–282.
Flora-Wei, F.-Y., Wang, Y. K., & Kluasner, M. (2012). Rethinking college students’ self-regulation and
sustained attention: Does text messaging during class influence cognitive learning? Communication
Education, 61, 185–204.

123
 Author's personal copy
High Educ (2015) 69:303–313 313

Hardy, S. A., Zamboanga, B. L., Thompson, R. A., & Reay, D. (2003). Student background and course
involvement among first-year college students in Introduction to Psychology: Implications for course
design and student achievement. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 3, 6–10.
Hew, K. F. (2011). Students’ and teachers’ use of Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 662–676.
Hollyhead, A., Edwards, D. J., & Holt, G. D. (2012). The use of virtual learning environment (VLE) and
social network site (SNS) hosted forums in higher education: A preliminary examination. Industry and
Higher Education, 26, 369–379.
Howell, D. C. (1992). Statistical Methods for Psychology. Boston, MA: Duxbury Press.
Hurt, N. E., Moss, G. S., Bradley, C. L., Larson, L. R., Lovelace, M. D., Prevost, L. B., et al. (2012a). The
‘Facebook’ effect: College students’ perceptions of online discussions in the age of social networking.
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(2), 1–24.
Hurt, N.E., Moss, G.S., Bradley, C.L., Larson, L.R., Lovelace, M.D., Prevost, L.B., Camus, M.S. (2012).
The ‘Facebook’ effect: college students’ perceptions of online discussions in the age of social net-
working. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6 (2). Retrieved 16th
January 2014 from http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=
1324&context=int_jtl.
Huxham, M. (2005). Learning in lectures: Do ‘interactive windows’ help? Active Learning in Higher
Education, 6, 17–31.
Junco, R. (2012). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities,
and student engagement. Computers & Education, 58, 162–171.
Junco, R., Elavsky, C. M., & Heiberger, G. (2012). Putting Twitter to the test: Assessing outcomes for student
collaboration, engagement, and success. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44, 273–287.
Junco, R., Heiberger, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and
grades. Journal of Computer Assisted learning, 27, 119–132.
Kassens-Noor, E. (2012). Twitter as a teaching practice to enhance active and informal learning in higher
education: The case of sustainable tweets. Active Learning in Higher Education, 13, 9–21.
Knight, J. (2010). Distinguishing the learning approaches adopted by undergraduates in their use of online
resources. Active Learning in Higher Education, 11, 67–76.
Kuh, G. D. (2002). The National Survey of Student Engagement: Conceptual framework and overview of
psychometric properties. Bloomington: Indiana University, Center for Postsecondary Research.
Retrieved January 18, 2013 from http://nsse.iub.edu/pdf/psychometric_framework_2002.pdf.
Mazer, J. P., Murphy, R. E., & Simonds, C. J. (2007). I’ll see you on ‘‘Facebook’’: The effects of computer-
mediated teacher self-disclosure on student motivation, affective learning, and classroom climate.
Communication Education, 56, 1–17.
Prosser, M., & Trigwell, K. (1999). Understanding learning and teaching: The experience in higher edu-
cation. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
Richtel, M. (2011, October 22). A Silicon Valley school that doesn’t compute. The New York Times.
Retrieved January 18, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-
in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html.
Rinaldo, S. B., Tap, S., & Laverne, D. A. (2011). Learning by tweeting: Using twitter as a pedagogical tool.
Journal of Marketing Education, 33, 193–203.
Schroeder, A., Minocha, S., & Schneider, C. (2010). The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of
using social software in higher and further education teaching and learning. Journal of Computer
Assisted learning, 26, 159–174.
Son, L. K., & Simon, D. A. (2012). Distributed learning: Data, metacognition and educational implications.
Educational Psychology Review, 24, 379–399.
Tam, D. (2013). Facebook by the numbers: 1.06 billion monthly active users. Retrieved 1 May, 2013 from
http://news.cnet.com/8301-103_3-57566550-93/facebook-by-the-numbers-1.06-billion-monthly-
active-users/.
University Partners University of Alberta. (2011). Student engagement: What do we know and what should
we do? Retrieved January 22, 2014 from http://education.alberta.ca/media/6459431/student_
engagement_literature_review_2011.pdf.
Wilson, R. E., Gosling, S. D., & Graham, L. T. (2012). A review of Facebook research in the social sciences.
Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 203–220.
Wood, E., Zivcakova, L., Gentile, P., Archer, K., De Pasquale, D., & Nosko, A. (2011). Examining the
impact of off-task multi-tasking with technology on real-time classroom learning. Computers &
Education, 58, 365–374.
Yang, Y. C. (2008). A catalyst for teaching critical thinking in a large university class in Taiwan: Asyn-
chronous online discussions with the facilitation of teaching assistants. Educational Technology
Research and Development, 56, 241–264.

123
View publication stats