The Writing on the Wall: Using a Facebook Group to Promote Student Achievement

摘要

This study examined the effectiveness of using a Facebook group to increase preservice teachers' knowledge when one was used as a forum to share, answer, and discuss content-related questions in a technology course required for all students seeking teacher licensure. Further, it examined the students' prior use of Facebook groups, how the treatment group used the group, and their perspectives of the use of Facebook as an educational tool. The results revealed no significant gain in achievement. Almost all participants had prior experience using a Facebook group, and the primary purposes of these groups were for organizing events, communication within organizations, communication within classes, and lending support to memorials/dedications. Although participation in the group was required and linked to a grade, most of the participation was characterized as very low level (i.e., "liking"), with only half supplying the answers to questions and about one fifth making comments. Their perspectives on whether Facebook can be used for educational purposes were lukewarm, yet they indicated significant change in their perception that Facebook assignments were an invasion of privacy. While they perceived the idea to be good, they viewed the expectations for participation as too lenient, thus causing lack of in-depth participation.