Facebook in Schools? The Perspective of Secondary School Students

Author(s):

Petra Grell(presenting / submitting)Franco Rau(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

06. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures

Format:

Paper

Session Information

06 SES 06 A, Media Culture in Schools

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

15:30-17:00

Room:

104.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Stefan Iske

Contribution

Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in using social media in educational contexts. With regard to practices of creating and sharing digital goods within the social web some researchers emphasize the great opportunities the social web offers for education. Knowledge sharing beyond the classroom (Guth and Petrucco 2009) and the facilitation of active participation (Owen et al. 2006) are some examples of these new opportunities. Other researchers already discuss the possibilities and challenges of a new participatory culture (Jenkins 2009). However, skeptical voices point out that it is important to consider "the actual - rather than potential - use of social media in education" (Selwyn 2010, p. 3). Furthermore Gouseti (2009, p. 352) believes that previous research has failed to provide a clear picture of “realities of technology use in school settings”.

Part of this reality is, that most students in Europe are already using the popular Social Network Facebook for private communications, for sharing photos (e.g. selfies) or videos, for making friends or keeping in touch. This happens not only in Germany, where up to 69% of 12-19 year old have a Facebook account (MPFS 2014, p. 36) but also in other European countries (Haddon & Livingstone, 2012). Since 2013 it is one of the three most popular application on smartphones (MPFS 2013, p. 8) and until now the most popular Network since 2011 (MPFS 2013 p. 15). Although German education Institutions like schools are quite reluctant using Facebook for educational purpose, because of a huge awareness of data protection and privacy, which is definitely not provided by facebook. Some teachers are using facebook in classes even though it is forbidden (or officially not recommended) by the educational ministeries in 6 of 16 federal states (e.g. Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg). Until now there is no single study known - apart from single case studies - that gives insight in the use of Facebook for educational purpose within school contexts in Germany. And there is no single study, investigating the students perspective on using Facebook in schools. Taking this into account, our research aimed to (1) identify secondary school students experiences and attitudes towards using facebook for school-related activities; (2) explore secondary school students attitudes towards ministerial norms and (3) analyse how students attitudes can be explained.

Method

The empirical study was conducted in Germany in October 2014. Data was collected through a questionnaire that was completed by 166 secondary school students from a public school. The questionnaire covers, among other topics, the following issues: (a) experiences with Facebook for educational purposes and interactions with teachers, (b) attitudes toward Facebook refering to school-related issues and (c) students motives for using Facebook. For the development of the questionnaire findings from the context of higher education have been adapted (Arteaga Sánchez et al. 2014, Hew 2011). As a pre-test the questionnaire was examined during a research team workshop with three secondary school students. Some items were modified after the discussion. To measure the items relating to students attitudes we used a five-point Likert scale.

Expected Outcomes

The analysis of the data has not yet been fully completed. Preliminarily results show that within our sample 74 % of the students have a Facebook account and 90 % are using WhatsAPP. The main motives for using Facebook were (1) to keep in touch with their friends and (2) to kill time. Just a few students have already made experiences with using Facebook for educational purposes (e.g. for collaboration or sharing resources). We were surprised that nearly 50% of the students who are using Facebook are friends with at least one of their current teacher on Facebook. Although it seems that most of the students do not consider Facebook as helpful for school-related activities, they also do not consider ministerial norms restricting the use of Facebook as useful. However, there is a difference between students having a Facebook account and students without an account.

References

Arteaga Sánchez, R., Cortijo V., Javed U. (2014): Students’ perceptions of Facebook for academic purposes. Computers & Education, Vol. 70, 138-149. Gouseti, A. (2010): Web 2.0 and education: not just another case of hype, hope and disappointment? Learning, Media and Technology. Vol. 35 (3), 351–356; Guth, S.; Petrucco, C. (2009): Social Software and Language Acquisition. In: Handbook of Research on E-Learning Methodologies for Language Acquisition . New York: Information Science Reference, 424–442; Haddon, L., Livingstone, S., & the EU Kids Online network (2012). EU Kids Online: National perspectives. URL: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EUKidsOnline/EU%20Kids%20III/Reports/PerspectivesReport.pdf Hew, K. F. (2011): Students' and teachers' use of Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 27, 662–676 Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture. Media Education for the 21st Century. From John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning Cambridge: The MIT Press.; Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest, MPFS (2014): JIM-Studie 2014. Jugend, Information, (Multi-)Media, Stuttgart 2014. URL: http://www.mpfs.de/fileadmin/JIM-pdf14/JIM-Studie_2014.pdf [24.12.2014] Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest, MPFS (2013): 15 Jahre JIM-Studie. Jugend, Information, (Multi-)Media, Stuttgart 2013. URL: http://www.mpfs.de/fileadmin/JIM15/PDF/15JahreJIMStudie.pdf [24.12.2014] Owen, M.; Grant, L; Sayers, S.; Facer, K. (2006): Opening Education: Social software and learning. Bristol: Futurelab; Selwyn, N. (2010): The educational significance of social media – a critical perspective. Keynote at Ed-Media conference. Toronto. http://de.scribd.com/doc/33693537/The-educational-significance-of-social-media-a-critical-perspective

Author Information

Petra Grell (presenting / submitting)

Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany

Franco Rau (presenting)

TU Darmstadt

Institute for General and Vocational Pedagogy

Darmstadt

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