Engineering Student Use of Facebook as a Social Media ‘Third Space’

1. Stuart Palmer (@s_palm )
Tiffany Gunning
Faculty of Science, Engineering & Built Environment
Deakin University
Engineering Student Use of
Facebook as a Social Media
‘Third Space’

2. Social networking systems (SNSs) have been
widely adopted by students of all ages
Hence, potentially valuable in (higher) education
They may compete with LMS discussion spaces
Many cases of SNS use in engineering education
are documented
Social media and education

3. Many cases describe institutionally-initiated or
controlled applications of SNSs in learning
Here we are interested in student-created use
of Facebook for educational purposes, using the
framing concept of a social media ‘third space’
Social media and education

4. Third spaces (Bhabha, 2004)
First
space
Third
space
Second
space

5. Third spaces (Bhabha, 2004)
First
space
Third
space
Second
space

6. FB social media third space
1. Student
personal use
of Facebook
2. University-
created
Facebook
sites

7. FB social media third space
1. Student
personal use
of Facebook
3. Student-
created,
study-related
Facebook
sites
2. University-
created
Facebook
sites

8. Ethics approval / exemption for data collection
Locate public Facebook groups relating to
engineering at Deakin University
Capture post and follow-up comment data
Visualise time sequence of posts
Use text analytics to visualise post text content
Method

9. Activity in Facebook pages
and groups
Group1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 8 1 0 1 0 0
Group2 12 1 1 1 1 2 1 3 2 7 5 8 17 27 44 25 9 10 28 10
Group3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 11
Group4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 23 58 56 47 20 3 3 38 38 25
Group5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 0
Group6 0 0 3 276 285 48 7 6 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Page1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 34 37 0 0 0
Page2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 9 12 26 20 6
Page3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 0 114 2
Page4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
Page5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 9 12 26 20 6
Jul
07
Jan
08
Jul
08
Jan
09
Jul
09
Jan
10
Jul
10
Jan
11
Jul
11
Jan
12
Jul
12
Jan
13
Jul
13
Jan
14
Jul
14
Jan
15
Jul
15
Jan
16
Jul
16
Jan
17

10. Activity in Facebook pages
and groups
Group1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 8 1 0 1 0 0
Group2 12 1 1 1 1 2 1 3 2 7 5 8 17 27 44 25 9 10 28 10
Group3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 11
Group4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 23 58 56 47 20 3 3 38 38 25
Group5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 0
Group6 0 0 3 276 285 48 7 6 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Page1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 34 37 0 0 0
Page2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 9 12 26 20 6
Page3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 0 114 2
Page4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
Page5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 9 12 26 20 6
Jul
07
Jan
08
Jul
08
Jan
09
Jul
09
Jan
10
Jul
10
Jan
11
Jul
11
Jan
12
Jul
12
Jan
13
Jul
13
Jan
14
Jul
14
Jan
15
Jul
15
Jan
16
Jul
16
Jan
17

11. Stop word removal – common parts of speech
Lemmatisation of words to their root form
Compute ‘distance’ measure between term pairs
Dimensional reduction to a 2D plot
Terms that commonly occur together in posts
appear closer together in MDS plot
Text analytics - MDS

21. big picture ……………………… specific details
studyrelated…………….……social
Focus of student academic activities
Natureofstudentactivities

22. …student-created Facebook pages containing:
1. social expressions
2. social events outside of school
3. social events in school
4. academic content and subjects, and
5. practical matters concerning school
Aaen and Dalsgaard (2016) noted…

23. If academic staff were to make their presence
known (by posting, or even as ‘lurkers’), would
this have any influence on the way that
students operated in such social media third
spaces?
Questions

24. If students are finding apparently educationally
useful affordances in the use of such third
spaces, and academic staff do not wish to
actively intrude into their functioning, how can
they never-the-less be factored in to the
learning designs of units and courses in ways
that are productive for student learning?
Questions

25. Thank you for your time