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

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.