Can learning be virtually boosted? An investigation of online social networking impacts
Introduction
With the inception of Web 2.0 technology, a new mode of social networking, i.e., online social networking, has emerged and become popular. People are increasingly inclined to cultivate their virtual social relationships and virtual life on existing prevalent social networking websites such as Facebook, Xanga and MySpace. These websites provide favorable platforms for individuals to express themselves. More importantly, by using social networking technologies, individuals can establish new relationships with acquaintances, as well as maintain close relationships with friends, colleagues, and family members. The active engagement in these websites to establish virtual relationships provides individuals with access to a diversified set of information from multiple sources (Wasko & Faraj, 2005).
From an educational perspective, online social networking is also a learning practice for university students, since the learning environment of the university itself is a social system of individuals’ interacting within a shared academic context (Hwang, Kessler, & Francesco, 2004). We observe that online social networking has been deeply embedded in the lifestyle of young people, especially since university students occupy a large proportion of the total population of online social networking websites (Madge et al., 2009, Subrahmanyam et al., 2008). Students’ social networking, especially when the networking increasingly shifts to online, is more likely to be self-initiated learning, in which individuals create a system of information and support by building and nurturing personal links. Recent research conducted in a Northern Taiwan research university shows that, in a web-based learning, undergraduates with certain self-regulation capacity intend to interact with their peers to get feedback and thus improve their performance (Wang & Wu, 2008). Further, students can develop commitment to their university and begin to better articulate their role as well as engage in peer-supported communities on aspects of academic life (Selwyn, 2009).
However, the pedagogical impacts on university students of the social networking in general and the emerging online social networking behavior in particular have obtained scant attention in the literature. Most prior studies have investigated the values of personal social networks in the business world, e.g., facilitating individuals to achieve higher mobility, better job performance and other career-related success (Podolny and Baron, 1997, Seibert et al., 2001). Although several studies have investigated the social network relationships in computer-supported collaborative learning (Cho et al., 2007, Kreijns et al., 2007, Ryymin et al., 2008), the network investigated was constrained to a small and controlled group, in which the networking behavior is largely different from that in contemporary online social network websites. In practice, students intend to generate creative activities and learning in the online social networking context. It has been found that “net generation” learners have different styles of information processing and learning expectations, which behooves educational institutions to reconsider pedagogical approaches (Williams & Chinn, 2009). We therefore raise two fundamental questions from a pedagogical standpoint: What are the impacts of online social networking on university students’ learning? and What are the implications?
According to social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), individuals often self initiate and regulate their learning to achieve desirable learning outcomes. Through interacting with peers and the situated environment, individuals’ cognition, affection and behavior are influenced. Intuitively, the social aspect of learning should be one foci of our investigation on university students’ online social networking behavior and its consequences. Recent research illustrates that young people’s online social networking behavior can bring them physical and psychological well-being (Ellison et al., 2007, Steinfield et al., 2008). Although the findings are encouraging, the mere demonstration of potential correlations among variables in such research while ignoring the underlying mechanism how online social networking influences university students’ learning process and the consequent outcomes lends us a promising opportunity to revisit the pedagogical impacts of online social networking on university students’ learning. Also, it is notable that most universities increasingly emphasize student-centered learning practices, and their educational goals are not only to equip students with expertise or skills, but also to provide an environment for students for their psychological well-being conducive to lifelong learning. Thus, our attempt in researching the social impacts of university students’ online social networking on learning entails important pedagogical implications for both individual learning and educational administration.
Due to its world-wide ubiquity, Facebook (www.facebook.com) is the selection of our research platform, a special online social networking context for investigation. Facebook has increasing influences on university students’ lives with usage rates of over 90% per year at most campuses (Lampe et al., 2006, Stutzman, 2006). This is also confirmed by students we interviewed at our university who noted that: “Being on Facebook becomes a daily activity and we log on Facebook multiple times per day”.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. We first develop a research model based on the literature and propose hypotheses. We then detail our research method followed by results and discussion. We conclude the paper with implications, limitations and future directions of this research.
Section snippets
Learning outcomes
Before illustrating our theoretical development, we first define the domains of learning outcomes that we pursue. Learning outcomes span three domains: cognitive, affective and skill-based (Kraiger et al., 1993, Schmidt and Ford, 2003). The knowledge-based cognitive domain is associated with intellectual learning, and thus cognitive learning outcomes include knowledge, comprehension, and application. The attitudinal-based affective domain is related to emotional learning, feelings, being,
Research method
We adopted a survey approach to test our research model. However, before implementing the main survey, we conducted 4 rounds of focus group discussions involving 14 undergraduates. These participants with different nationalities (Hong Kong, Mainland China, and US) came from different cohorts (foundation year and year 1–3). All of them had Facebook experience and had established hundreds of connections on Facebook. The focus group discussions, complementary to the survey approach, explored the
Results and discussion
The analysis of survey data was done in a holistic manner using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) with the bootstrap re-sampling procedure (Cotteman & Senn, 1992). Following the recommended two-stage analytical procedure (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988), we tested the structural relationships after assessing the measurement model.
Implications
This study presents several implications for the extant literature, education practices, and future research. The research model development on the impacts of online social networking on learning accompanied by empirical validation contributes to the literature of social networking and social learning. We observe that university students show zeal for online social networking, but there is a lack of knowledge of what the impacts are of the emerging social networking, and how it influences
Limitations and future research
We acknowledge several limitations to our study that suggest the need for future research. First, our results demonstrate a partial mediation effect of socialization between online social networking and learning outcomes. We believe that there is a more complex and dynamic evolution from pure social networking activities to the ultimate learning outcomes in which rich psychological and sociological processes are hidden. We identify only socialization as the foremost and straightforward process.
Conclusion
Online social networking has deeply penetrated our social life. Through the continuous innovation of web technologies, people are increasingly influenced by the virtual world. Our study investigating the learning impacts of online social networking on university students demonstrates the critical role that such an emerging creative networking approach plays in education. Online social networking facilitates university students to develop satisfying relationships with peers, as well as fosters
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