indings support this author’s expectation: many students showed great enthusiasm for initiating and participating in course Facebook page discussions of communications topics, even when their involvement is not being assessed.
One way that students could initiate a discussion was through finding course-related articles or videos online and then sharing links to those on the course Facebook page. Indeed, in a Likert-scale statement of agreement, 97.4% of 39 respondents agreed that “Finding/sharing video links and articles” was effective for learning. On a related “yes/no” question, 87.5% of 40 respondents asserted that they had found and uploaded a course-relevant link to the Facebook page wall during the course; 20% (8 out of 40) said that they uploaded a link at least once every two weeks.
In a related, open-ended question asking students to identify any strength of using the course Facebook page, one student wrote about this “intensive and extensive sharing of information.” Another suggested “materials can be shared without eating into curriculum time.”
On Facebook, another means of posting is by writing on the page wall rather than by uploading links, thereby initiating discussions. Some students would do this when they had an idea related to course content or to some other area of communication that they were contemplating. For the “yes/no” question: “Did you make any wall posts?”, 75% of the 40 respondents answered “yes.” Further, 87.5% answered in the affirmative to this question: “Did you leave comments on others’ wall posts and/or links?” This statistic illustrates that active initiation was matched by extensive participation.
A pair of questions explored this further. On the question as to whether or not students had accessed links to and read articles, 97.5% of the 40 respondents answered positively. On the question of whether or not students had accessed and viewed links to posted videos, 95% answered in the affirmative. 56.4% of those who said that they had accessed links to and read articles did so at least once a week; 48.6% of those who said that they had viewed videos stated that they had done so at least once a week. This indicates widespread support for an element of the course that was not evaluated, and it demonstrates a high level of motivation.
Student enthusiasm for using the Facebook page was also illustrated by the fact that 97.5% of 39 respondents agreed that having such a forum for interaction was useful. 92.3% took this a step further, agreeing that “Having a course Facebook page has helped me better understand communication principles and effective practice.”
The following open-ended comments from the student feedback testify to this as well: (See Appendix 5 for all comments.)
“One more way to interact and learn”
“Allows one to learn outside of class and to reflect on what has been taught earlier. Able to write short comments and allows one to share articles and videos easily. Moreover, it is something that we check very often and hence the convenience accorded by it.”
“Provides a platform for students to share what they have learnt or post relevant articles, videos etc, where they can get valuable feedback from their peers. Provide an opportunity for students to learn outside of classroom.”
“Learning outside of class hours, learning on the go, learning from almost anywhere on the planet can take place as long as there is internet connection. Bottom-line: learning is free, uncoerced, all natural and organic.”
Along with this emphasis on added learning, a number of students left comments that demonstrated that they appreciated the Facebook page for the added opportunity that it gave them for interacting with their peers, both those in their own tutorial groups and those from another group. In fact, of 30 comments given in the open-ended question about strengths of having the Facebook page, 18 students made a statement that included one (or more) of the following words to positively describe their experience of using Facebook for learning: share, interact, communicate, bond.
These findings sugg