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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/209471
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- Title
- Facebook in higher education promotes social but not academic engagement
- Author(s)
- Wise, Lisa; Skues, Jason; Williams, Benedict
- Abstract
- Although there is evidence that academically successful students are engaged with their studies, it has proved difficult to define student engagement clearly. Student engagement is commonly construed as having two dimensions, social and academic. The rapid adoption of social media and digital technologies has ensured increasing interest in using them for improving student engagement. This paper examines Facebook usage among a first year psychology student cohort and reports that although the majority of students (94%) had Facebook accounts and spent an average of one hour per day on Facebook, usage was found to be predominantly social. Personality factors influenced usage patterns, with more conscientious students tending to use Facebook less than less conscientious students. This paper argues that, rather than promoting social engagement in a way that might increase academic engagement, it appears that Facebook is more likely to operate as a distracting influence.
- Publication type
- Conference paper
- Research centre
- Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Higher Education, Lilydale
- Research centre
- Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences
- Source
- Proceedings of 'Changing demands, changing directions', the 28th Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education Conference (ascilite 2011), Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, 04-07 December 2011 / G. Williams, P. Statham, N. Brown and B. Cleland (eds.), pp. 1332-1342
- Publication year
- 2011
- Keyword(s)
- Facebook; Higher education; Social media; Student engagement
- Publisher
- University of Tasmania
- ISBN
- 9781862956445
- Publisher URL
- http://www.ascilite.org.au/index.php?p=conference
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2011 Lisa Wise, Jason Skues and Benedict Williams. The authors assign to ascilite and educational non-profit institutions, a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction, provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The author(s) also grant a non-exclusive licence to ascilite to publish this document on the ascilite web site and in other formats for the Proceedings ascilite Hobart 2011. Any other use is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.
- Full text
- Peer reviewed
