This exploratory study proposed to examine how educators’ uses and gratifications expectancy of Twitter for professional development influences their perceived e-learning experience. In addition, it sought to investigate the demographics of participants who were seeking educational technology knowledge through Twitter. Based on a review of literature, a uses and gratifications approach was the proposed theoretical model for evaluating how and why educators’ perceived e-learning experience was affected by four uses and gratification expectancy constructs.

1. Educators’ Perceptions of Twitter for
Educational Technology Professional
Development: A Uses and Gratifications
Expectancy Model
Douglas C. Strahler
Dissertation Defense
Doctoral Program in Instructional Technology and Leadership
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
October 23, 2014

2. “In an era of school reform,
many consider the education
and professional development of
teachers as the keystone to
educational improvement.”
-Chris Dede, taken from Online
Professional Development for
Teachers

3.  Perception of failing school systems
 Lack of quality teachers
 Need to meet student achievement goals
 No Child Left Behind Act
A variety of professional development programs have been
created to address major changes in education.
INTRODUCTION
Reasons for School Reform

4. Statement of the Problem
 Substantial growth in the number of PD programs, but
some lack quality or are not continuous
 Traditional formats and online
 Resistance to change
 Fullan (1991), Sparks & Hirsh (1997), Guskey (2000) and
other researchers identify a variety of reasons from
personal habits to a lack of motivation and benefits
 Growing need for “just-in-time” assistance and
continuous support (Dede, 2006)
INTRODUCTION

5. Twitter & Online Professional Development
 Social Networking service that is a fusion of IM (Instant
messaging) and an SMS-based (short messaging service)
communications platform
 140-character limit
 Hashtags (#) = categories
 @ replies = usernames
 OPD programs has allowed the experience to be more
customizable, real-time, and provides an outlet for ongoing
support (Whitehouse et. al, 2006)
 Anderson (1976) asserts “there is continuing need for aids to
making decisions about media–what to use, when, and why”
(p. 3) – based on the characteristics on a specific media.
INTRODUCTION

6. The role of communication in the
learning process is critical –
which may influence students’
learning experience.

7. Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT)
 An audience based theoretical framework, grounded on
the assumption that individuals select media and content
to fulfill felt needs or wants.
 Students/Adult Learners select a medium to satisfy their
learning needs
 These needs are expressed as motives for adopting
particular medium use, and are connected to the social
and psychological makeup of the individual
(Papacharissi, 1996).
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

8. UGT Assumptions
 Active Audience
 Media effects are limited to attitude and behavior
 Media compete with other sources
 Media users are able to identify their own needs and
possess the ability to report their needs/motives
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

9. UGT Criticisms & Extensions
 One of the primary criticisms of UGT is the lack of a
common theoretical base leading to many researchers
referring to at as an “approach.”
 Extensions
 Expectancy-value theory (EVT) applies that “the
gratifications you seek from media are determined by your
attitudes toward the media–your beliefs about what a
particular medium can give you – and your evaluations of
this material” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011, p. 351).
 Dependency theory examines “the relationship among
social systems, media systems, and audiences, and how
each of these interacts and affects one another”
(Rosenberry & Vicker, 2009, p. 127).
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

10. Uses and Gratifications Expectancy Model
 Mondi, Woods, & Rafi (2008)
 Study investigated communication behaviors on ‘how and
why’ students’ ‘Uses and Gratification Expectancy’ (UGE)
for e-learning resources influenced their ‘Perceived e-
Learning Experience’
 Secondary-school level in Malaysia
 Developed the “Uses and Gratifications Expectancy
Questionnaire” (UGEQ)
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

11. Katz, Gurevitch, and Haas’ (1973)
Five Communicative Attributes
 Dropping the entertainment needs for my study
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

12.  The purpose of this study was to examine how
educators’ uses and gratifications expectancy of Twitter
for professional development influenced their perceived
e-learning experience
 Focus in educational technology professional development
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Research Purpose

13. Research Design
 Two-part survey
 Part One: Demographics & Twitter Usage
 Part Two: Uses and Gratifications Expectancy
Questionnaire (UGEQ)
 Web-based survey using Survey Monkey
 Survey will be administered to educators’ who use or
follow #edtechchat on Twitter
 Survey link will be posted to Twitter once per day for four
weeks
METHODOLOGY

14. Example Tweets
METHODOLOGY

15. Research Question & Null Hypothesis #1
RQ1: Are educators’ cognitive uses and gratification
expectancy of Twitter for professional development
positively related to their perceived e-learning
experience?
H1: Educators cognitive uses and gratification
expectancy of Twitter for professional development
is not positively related to their perceived e-learning
experience.
METHODOLOGY

16. Cognitive UGE
CUGE1. I use Twitter to help me
know many things
CUGE2. I use Twitter to search
for new information
CUGE3. I carry out Twitter
searches to answer questions
CUGE4. I post questions to
Twitter for answers
CUGE5. I use Twitter to explore
topics of interest, beyond my
normal content area
Perceived e-Learning
PLEUGE1. Using Twitter allows me
to learn at my own pace
PLEUGE2. Using Twitter gives me
control over what I want to learn
and when I want to learn it
PLEUGE3. When I discover new
things on Twitter, I think about it
critically
PLEUGE4. I discover things on
Twitter on my own
PLEUGE5. I am able to access
information that I need from Twitter
METHODOLOGY
Research Question 1 Measurement-Items

17. Research Question & Null Hypothesis #2
RQ2: Are educators’ affective uses and gratification
expectancy of Twitter for professional development
positively related to their perceived e-learning
experience?
H2: Educators affective uses and gratification
expectancy of Twitter for professional development
is not positively related to their perceived e-learning
experience.
METHODOLOGY

18. Affective UGE
AUGE1. I like to talk to others
about Twitter
AUGE2. I like showing others how
to use Twitter in different ways
AUGE3. I enjoy working with
Twitter
Perceived e-Learning
PLEUGE1. Using Twitter allows me
to learn at my own pace
PLEUGE2. Using Twitter gives me
control over what I want to learn
and when I want to learn it
PLEUGE3. When I discover new
things on Twitter, I think about it
critically
PLEUGE4. I discover things on
Twitter on my own
PLEUGE5. I am able to access
information that I need from Twitter
METHODOLOGY
Research Question 2 Measurement-Items

19. Research Question & Null Hypothesis #3
RQ3: Are educators’ personal integrative uses and
gratification expectancy of Twitter for professional
development positively related to their perceived
e-learning experience?
H3: Educators personal integrative uses and
gratification expectancy of Twitter for professional
development is not positively related to their
perceived e-learning experience.
METHODOLOGY

20. Personal Integrative UGE
PUGE1. Using Twitter is easy for
me
PUGE2. Using Twitter allows me
to be virtually anywhere at any
time
PUGE3. I can search and
navigate through Twitter content
easily
Perceived e-Learning
PLEUGE1. Using Twitter allows me
to learn at my own pace
PLEUGE2. Using Twitter gives me
control over what I want to learn
and when I want to learn it
PLEUGE3. When I discover new
things on Twitter, I think about it
critically
PLEUGE4. I discover things on
Twitter on my own
PLEUGE5. I am able to access
information that I need from Twitter
METHODOLOGY
Research Question 3 Measurement-Items

21. Research Question & Null Hypothesis #4
RQ4: Are educators’ social integrative uses and
gratification expectancy of Twitter for professional
development positively related to their perceived
e-learning experience?
H4: Educators social integrative uses and gratification
expectancy of Twitter for professional development
is not positively related to their perceived e-learning
experience.
METHODOLOGY

22. Social Integrative UGE
SUGE1. Using Twitter gives me
feedback I need from others
SUGE2. I use Twitter to interact with
other educators
SUGE3. Using Twitter prepares me
to join the extended learning
community in the world
SUGE4. Using Twitter improves my
ability to communicate with other
people
SUGE5. Using Twitter keeps me
from feeling lonely
Perceived e-Learning
PLEUGE1. Using Twitter allows me
to learn at my own pace
PLEUGE2. Using Twitter gives me
control over what I want to learn
and when I want to learn it
PLEUGE3. When I discover new
things on Twitter, I think about it
critically
PLEUGE4. I discover things on
Twitter on my own
PLEUGE5. I am able to access
information that I need from Twitter
METHODOLOGY
Research Question 4 Measurement-Items

23. Data Analysis
 SPSS Version 22
 Descriptive Statistics for Demographic & Twitter
Usage data
 Pearson Correlation Analysis
 Stepwise Multiple Regression
RESULTS

24. Respondent Demographics
 Gender: 23.1% Male; 76.9% Female
FINDINGS

25. Respondent Demographics
FINDINGS

26. Respondent Demographics
FINDINGS

27. Respondent Twitter Usage
FINDINGS

28. Instrumentation & Reliability Analysis
 Internal consistency reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s
Alpha scores at a level of .05 – exceed .70 min (Hair, et al., 1998)
 Appropriate sample size (N=39)
 Summated Scales created for each construct
FINDINGS
Constructs Items Alpha
CUGE CUGE1, CUGE2, CUGE3, CUGE4, CUGE5 .862
AUGE AUGE1, AUGE2, AUGE3 .856
PUGE PUGE1, PUGE2, PUGE3 .791
SUGE SUGE1, SUGE2, SUGE3, SUGE4, SUGE5 .773
PLEUGE PLEUGE1, PLEUGE2, PLEUGE, PLEUGE4, PLEUGE5 .901

29. Pearson Correlation Analysis
FINDINGS

30. Stepwise Multiple Regression
 Takes the independent variable that significantly
contributes to the variance and adds it to the first model,
then the next variable is tested until the best set of
predictor variables is determined (Hair, et al., 1998)
 Assumptions tested and met
 Outliers [Mahalanobis Distance & Cook’s Distance]
 Multicollinearity [Tolerance & VIF]
 Independence of the Residuals [Durbin-Watson]
 Normality [Histogram]
 Linearity [P-P plot] & Homoscedasticity [Scatterplot]
FINDINGS

31. Stepwise Regression Analysis Results
FINDINGS

32.  Cognitive UGE significantly predicted perceived
e-learning experience
 Affective UGE, Personal UGE, & Social UGE did not
significantly predict perceived e-learning experience
Interpretation of Regression Model
FINDINGS

33.  Participants’ in the #edtechchat primary need is
cognitive - related to strengthening information,
knowledge, and understanding (Katz, Gurevitch, & Haas,
1973)
 OPD through Twitter is satisfying the need for knowledge
 Similar to previous UGT studies
 Johnson and Yang (2009) – information motives significant,
but not social motives
 Liu, Cheung, and Lee (2010) – content & technology
gratifications were factors; not social gratifications
 Veletsianos (2011) – scholars primary activity on Twitter was
sharing information, media, and resources
CONCLUSION
Key Study Findings

34.  Professional Development
 Provides results for perceived learning experience through
Twitter
 Provides insight into designing/developing OPD through
Twitter
 Contribution to the field of adult learning by beginning to
understand learners’ perceptions
 UGT
 Continue to extend the research in the field of UGT
 For UGEM, provided an opportunity to further expand this
model
 Twitter
 Provides results on how Twitter is being used for OPD
CONCLUSION
Contributions to the Field

35.  With OPD, need to further understand uses and
gratifications of electronic media for learning
 Anderson (1976) asserts “there is continuing need for
aids to making decisions about media–what to use,
when, and why” (p. 3) – based on the characteristics on
a specific media.
 The findings:
 provide insights into why educators continue to use Twitter
as a professional development tool, despite the negative
perceptions that typically surround PD; and
 begin to provide insights into how and why Twitter provides
an environment conducive to learning.
CONCLUSION
Significance of Study

36.  Distribution of survey online
 Low response rate/small sample size
 Summer time
 Users only clicked/viewed link primarily on Sunday-
Tuesday
 Focused on one content area (educational technology)
 Respondents self-reported their perceptions
CONCLUSION
Study Limitations

37.  A study could be conducted to develop a deeper
understanding of which measurement-items within each uses
and gratifications expectancy (UGE) construct relate to
educators’ perceived e-learning experience through Partial
Least Squares or SEM analysis
 Could provide valuable insights into which items play a role in the
perceived e-learning experience
 A study could be conducted to investigate demographic
differences and how they contribute to the perceived e-
learning experience through Twitter
 Increase the sample size to provide a stronger representation
of the larger population
CONCLUSION
Future Research

38.  A study could be conducted to examine different content areas
of Twitter chats
 A study could be conducted by adopting a qualitative research
design to examine the “complexity of the social interactions”
(Marshall & Rossman, 2011) and the culture of Twitter as a
professional development tool
 Content Analysis of Twitter chat archives could be conducted, which
would provide “more directly how individual-level cognitive processes
and effects relate to message characteristics” (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico,
2014)
 A study could be conducted to evaluate Guskey’s (2000) second
critical level of PD evaluation – Participants’ learning
 Did participants’ acquired the intended knowledge or skill?
 Assist in improving Twitter chat content, format, and organization
CONCLUSION
Future Research

39. Conclusion
 This exploratory study found that while all four uses and
gratification expectancy constructs were found to be
statistically significant, a deeper analysis using a
stepwise regression uncovered that cognitive uses and
gratification expectancy to be the only significant
predictor towards their perceived e-learning experience.
 OPD through Twitter is satisfying the need for strengthening
information, knowledge, and understanding

40. Thank You
Special Thanks to my Committee:
Dr. David Carbonara, Chair
Dr. Rose Mary Mautino
Dr. Valerie Swarts

41. References
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 Guskey, T. R. (2000). Evaluating professional development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.
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42. References
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