The document summarizes a presentation on the pLASMA project, which aims to develop automated measures to help educators manage their use of social media for teaching and learning. The presentation covered the project's survey of educators on their social media use, which found blogs, Twitter, and YouTube were most used. Factor analysis identified six factors of social media use: 1) facilitating engagement, 2) organizing for teaching, 3) reaching outside the class. Regression analysis indicated educators' individualized use and level taught best predicted their past, current, and future social media use.

1. 1
Training Session on Using
Nvivo and SPSS in Research
Organized by: Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation,
Ryerson University
Presentation: project on Learning Analytics in the Social Media Age
(pLASMA)
Presenter: Marc Esteve Del Valle (Post-Doctoral Researcher at
Ryerson University Social Media Lab)
Date: 03/09/2016

2. ◼Anatoliy Gruzd
◼Caroline Haythornthwaite
◼Marc Esteve Del Valle
◼Drew Paulin
◼Sarah Gilbert
project on
Learning
Analytics in the
Social
Media
Age
#pLASMA
Funded by:
A project of:

3. 3
 Primary purpose:
o To develop and evaluate
automated measures that can
help educators manage their
use of social media for
teaching and learning
Project on Learning Analytics in the
Social Media Age (#pLASMA)

4. 4
#pLASMA Phase 1: Survey
Question 1: To what extent are social media being adopted by
Canadian (and international) instructors in Higher Education?
Question 2: What specific social media are being used for teaching,
and for what intended learning outcomes?
Question 3: What are the common assessment strategies of social
media use for teaching and learning used by instructors?

5. 5
#pLASMA Phase 1: Survey
Collection Time Period: March 2014 – February 2015
Recruitment via:
◦ Direct emails (known or recommended contacts)
◦ Mailing lists (e.g., ASIS&T, CITASA, etc.)
◦ Distribution at conferences, in presentations or using survey
information cards (e.g., LAK14)
◦ Twitter (posted using relevant conference hashtags, etc.)
Survey Structure:
◦ 27 questions and two sections
◦ Expected completion time: 35 minutes

6. 6
#pLASMA Survey: Demographics
Respondents
Median= 43.98

7. 7
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Denmark
Ireland
Israel
Netherlands
New Zealand
Romania
Spain
Sweden
Turkey
Switzerland
Brazil
Germany
Australia
United Kingdom
Canada
United States
Respondents from countries
#pLASMA Survey: Demographics
0% 5% 10% 15% 20%
Sociology
Computer sciences
Education
Information science
Journalism, media
studies and
communication
Top 5 Disciplines

8. Outline
1. What Social Media Platforms are Used for Teaching
2. How Social Media Platforms are Used for Teaching
3. What are the reasons behind instructors’ use of social media
for teaching
8

9. 9
Online Survey Implemented by
Qualtrics

10. 10
Excel Data File

11. 11
Social Media Use for Teaching
What is the most useful social media tool that you have used in class?
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70

12. Outline
1. What Social Media Platforms are Used for Teaching
2. How Social Media Platforms are Used for Teaching
3. What are the reasons behind instructors’ use of social media
for teaching
12

13. 13
How Social Media are Used in a Class?
Manual Coding
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Discovery by instructor
Fostering community
Organizing by students
Discovery by students
Learning through practice
Reaching outside the class
Supporting collaboration
Peer interaction
Reflective learning
Organizing by instructor
Sharing by instructor
Discussing
Sharing among students
Broad Categories
0Please give a brief explanation of how you
use the above tool in your course
3 Human Coders

14. 14
How Social Media are Used in a Class?
Code Explanation
Q9
How the “most useful
social media tool” was
used in their
courses(s).*
Q19
How social media was
used in one specific
recently taught class*
S2 Sharing among students 59 41
DC Discussing 50 42
S1 Sharing by instructor 46 41
O1 Organizing for instructor 41 29
RL Reflective learning 36 21
PI Peer interaction 23 11
SC Supporting collaboration 18 8
RO Reaching outside the class 16 3
LP Learning through practice 15 16
D2 Discovery by students 14 7
O2 Organizing for students 12 5
FC Fostering community 9 9
D1 Discovery by instructor 3 1
* 4 and 27 comments could not be interpreted for coding

15. 15
SPSS Data File

16. 16
Codes and Transformations (Dummy
Variables)
13 Codes
Dummy Variables
of Coders’
responses
(Questions Q 19
and Q9)

17. 17
Codes Output
Create dummy variables
Variable Creation
Label
code1_1 CODE1Q19=
code1_2 CODE1Q19=D2
code1_3 CODE1Q19=DC
code1_4 CODE1Q19=FC
code1_5 CODE1Q19=LP
code1_6 CODE1Q19=O1
code1_7 CODE1Q19=O2
code1_8 CODE1Q19=PI
code1_9 CODE1Q19=RL
code1_10 CODE1Q19=RO
code1_11 CODE1Q19=S1
code1_12 CODE1Q19=S2
code1_13 CODE1Q19=SC
code1_14 CODE1Q19=XX
Variable Creation
Label
code4_1 CODE1Q9=
code4_2 CODE1Q9=D1
code4_3 CODE1Q9=D2
code4_4 CODE1Q9=DC
code4_5 CODE1Q9=FC
code4_6 CODE1Q9=LP
code4_7 CODE1Q9=O1
code4_8 CODE1Q9=O2
code4_9 CODE1Q9=PI
code4_10 CODE1Q9=RL
code4_11 CODE1Q9=RO
code4_12 CODE1Q9=S1
code4_13 CODE1Q9=S2
code4_14 CODE1Q9=SC
code4_15 CODE1Q9=XX

18. 18
New Codes
Creation of the New Codes

19. 19
pLASMA Factor Analysis

20. 20
pLASMA Factor Analysis

21. 21
pLASMA Factor Analysis

22. 22
pLASMA Factor Analysis

23. 23
pLASMA Factor Analysis

24. 24
pLASMA Factor Analysis

25. 25
pLASMA Factor Analysis

26. 26
pLASMA Factor Analysis

27. 27
Results of Factor Analysis

28. 28
0 20 40 60 80
Discovery by
instructor
Fostering
community
Organizing by
students
Discovery by
students
Learning
through practice
Reaching
outside the class
Supporting
collaboration
Peer interaction
Reflective
learning
Organizing by
instructor
Sharing by
instructor
Discussing
Sharing among
students
Broad Categories
Factor Name Items loading on the
factor
Percent of
variance
explained
1 Facilitating
Engagement
Organizing by students;
Peer interaction;
Sharing by students;
Reflective learning
12.63
2 Organization for
Teaching
Organizing by/for
instructor;
Sharing by instructor;
Discussion
10.89
3 Reaching Outside Reaching outside
learning by practice
10.10
4 Enhancing Student
Learning
Supporting collaboration
among students;
Reflective learning
8.97
5 Building a Community
of Practice
Fostering communities 8.48
6 Discovery Discovery by instructors;
Discovery by students
8.48
How Social Media are Used in a Class?
Factor Analysis

29. Outline
1. What Social Media Platforms are Used for Teaching
2. How Social Media Platforms are Used for Teaching
3. What are the reasons behind instructors’ use of social media
for teaching
29

30. 30
Regression Analysis: Automatic Linear
Modelling

31. 31
Regression Analysis: Automatic Linear
Modelling

32. 32
Independent Variables
Age (age)
Gender (gender)
Years Taught (total number of years taught by
instructors)
Rat_Contrib_Consum
(Ratio between the instructor s’ use and consumption
of social media)
LevelStudies (Level in which the instructors teach)
TypeInsti (Type of institutions in which the instructors
teach)
Ped_Sup (Pedagogical support given by the instructors’
institutions to the instructors’ use Social Media
Tec_Sup (Technological support given by the
instructors’ institutions to the instructors’ use of social
media)
SMDEP (Instructors’ perception of their department
colleagues’ level of social media use)
StayInformed (The way how instructors access to the
social media information)
Dependent Variables
SMTECHPAST (Use of Social Media in the Past by
teachers) –Dependent Variable-
SMTECHNOW (Present use of Social Media by teachers)
–Dependent Variable-
SMTECHFUTURE (Future use of Social Media by
teachers) –Dependent Variable-
Regression Analysis: Automatic Linear
Modelling

33. 33
Regression Analysis: Instructors’ Past
Use of Social Media for Teaching

34. 34
Regression Analysis: Instructors’ Current
Use of Social Media for Teaching

35. 35
Regression Analysis: Instructors’ Future
Use of Social Media for Teaching

36. 36
Regression Analysis: Significance Level
of the Variables

37. 37
DV= SMETECHPAST DV=SMETECHNOW DV=SMETECHFUTURE
Intercept 3.582 0.816 4.168
Age 0.052*(0.147)
Gender
YearsTaught 0.085**(0.167) 0.063**(0.149)
StayInformed
RatContrConsum 2.756***(0.320) 2.213***(0.291) 1.769**(0.213)
TecSup
PedSup
SMDEP
TypeInsti 1.189** (0.182) -0.982**(0.152)
LevelStudies -2.184***(0.445) -1.422***(0.262) -1.796***(0.486)
Adjusted R2 0.139 0.131 0.083
N 333 333 333
Regression Analysis: Significant
Independent Variables
*p<0.10; **p<0.05; ***p<0.001; Importance level in parenthesis; Empty cells reflect
the null values in the Automatic Linear Analyses results

38. 38
Conclusions
 WHAT: Most Used Social Media: Blogs, Twitter and Youtube
 HOW: 1) Facilitating engagement, 2) Organizing for teaching, 3)
Reaching outside the class (Factor Analysis)
 WHAT REASONS: Instructors’ individualized use of social media
and the level of studies they teach (Automatic Linear Modelling)

39. ◼Anatoliy Gruzd
◼Caroline Haythornthwaite
◼Drew Paulin
◼Sarah Gilbert
◼Marc Esteve Del Valle
◼E-mail: mesteved@ryerson.ca
◼Twiter: @NetMev
project on
Learning
Analytics in the
Social
Media
Age
#pLASMA
Funded by:
A project of: