Three university courses used Twitter as a backchannel for student engagement and learning. Surveys found that students who participated more in Twitter felt it was more helpful for learning and recommended its use. However, participation did not increase feelings of connection or comfort. While some students lacked interest or found it distracting, instructors saw value and planned to continue and expand Twitter use with lessons learned. Good training and active instructor involvement are needed for effective Twitter integration.

1. The Role of Faculty in the Use of
Twitter in Large Lecture Courses
Heather M. Ross
Ryan Banow
Stan Yu

2. Overview
• Why?
• Course Details
• Training Provided
• Methods of Evaluation
• Results
• Future Directions and Best Practices

3. Why?
• Determine impact of a Twitter backchannel on
student engagement and performance/
– How connected do the students feel?
– Does the use of Twitter in class help students
academically and/or feel more connected?
– Do students see a use for Twitter in class?

4. Course Details
• Geography
– First year course
– Approximately 170 students
– Instructors with no prior Twitter experience
– PAL peer mentor as facilitator
• Nursing
– Second year course – first year in program
– Approximately 130 students
– Instructor experienced using Twitter in class
– Instructor facilitated
• Psychology
– First year course
– Approximately 350 students
– Instructor with no prior Twitter experience
– TA and instructor shared role as facilitator

5. Training Provided
• Introductory Twitter workshop provided for instructors
and facilitators from Geography and Psychology
• Ongoing support provided if needed throughout the term
• Accounts and hashtags set up for Geography and
Psychology
• Links to basic resources provided to all students

6. Methods of Evaluation
• Start-of-term and end-of-term surveys of students
(print and digital):
– Perceptions of students connectedness to their peers/to the
class
– Perceived level of comfort with participating in class
discussions/activities
– Perceived level of support for informal learning
– How often were they on Twitter
– How helpful was Twitter to their learning experience
• Monitoring and archiving Twitter course accounts
and course hashtags

7. Twitter Participation by Course
Twitter Participation Score Ordinal GEOG 130 NURS 200 PSY 121 Overall
No Participation 76 44 55 175
62.8% 42.7% 52.4% 53.2%
Rarely Participated 26 47 43 116
21.5% 45.6% 41.0% 35.3%
Participated more than rarely 19 12 7 38
15.7% 11.7% 6.7% 11.6%
Total 121 103 105 329

8. How helpful was your participation in
the Twitter portion of the class in
enhancing your learning?
Mann-Whitney comparison; significant at
Likert scale:
1=Not at all helpful
2=A little helpful
0.001
3=Somewhat helpful
4=Helpful
5=Very helpful
Twitter Participation Number Mean Std. Deviation
Rarely Participated 111 2.31 .902
Participated more than rarely 38 3.11 .953
Total 149 2.51 .977

9. Did students recommend using Twitter
in postsecondary classes?
GEOG 130 NURS 200 PSY 121 Total
No 17 11 23 51
15.6% 11.3% 26.1% 17.3%
Undecided 49 49 31 129
45.0 50.5% 32.5% 43.9%
Yes 43 37 34 114
39.4% 38.1% 38.6% 38.8%
Total 109 97 88 294

10. Why did students not participate in
the Twitter portion of the course?
• Did not have an existing Twitter account and
did not have an interest in using it
• Found social media as a distraction and
burden
• Didn’t feel that participating in the
backchannel was necessary for their learning

11. Impact on Student Engagement
• Students reported a higher level of
participation on the Twitter backchannel were
significantly more likely to:
– Feel that they were encouraged to find and share
educational resources that they find interesting
– Feel that their class encourages students to learn
collaboratively with their peers

12. Impact on Student Engagement
• Participation in Twitter did not have an effect
on:
– Students’ feelings of connectedness in the class
– Their level of comfort to engage in class
discussions/activities
– Their perceived level of informal support from peers

13. Future Directions
• Received interest from the same three
instructors to use Twitter in their courses
again this upcoming year
• Pilot new ideas and lessons learned in these
and smaller courses
• Share best practices more widely with
University of Saskatchewan faculty and
beyond

14. Best Practices
• Good faculty training and ongoing support
needed
• Cannot just setup account/hashtag and leave it
• Instructor should be active on Twitter
• Avoid posting same information in multiple
places
• Use to share supplemental resources
• Follow and retweet tweets by professionals in the
discipline

15. Contact Info
Heather M. Ross
heather.ross@usask.ca
@mctoonish
Ryan Banow
ryan.banow@usask.ca
@rbanow
Stan Yu
stan.yu@usask.ca
@icantstanyu