Social Media in Class Usage - Assignment Example

Qualitative Transcript. Name: Gender: Age: Ethnic Ancestry: Date of interview: Location of the Interview: Start of the interview: End of the interview:. Interviewer: When you hear the term, social media, what comes to mind? What do you think about? Respondent: (Long Pause) It is software that mediates communication. Interviewer: In our class we understand social media to refer to social interaction mediated through the Internet. These include social networking, status-update, and media-sharing sites. When I refer to social media during this interview, these are the types of social media that I’d like you to think about. Do you have any questions for me so far? (Examples include blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or online dating sites, but it doesn’t include Moodle or course websites.) Interviewer: In what ways is social media important to you? Respondent: (smiling) Social media helps me to obtain news, information, and education from other places in the world. Interviewer: Do you feel you rely on social media in any way? If yes, in what way? Respondent: (shifting in the chair) Yes. I rely on social media for news. I am always busy with my studies. The only way I get to know whatever is happening around me is through the social media. Interviewer: On which social media sites do you use spend the most time? How come those ones? What is it about those sites that you like? Respondent: (smiling) Facebook. With this site, I can link with any person around the world since most people use it. It enables me to find my old friends. In class usage Interviewer: Do you take your laptop or any other handheld device to your classes? How come? Respondent: (looking down) Yes. It enables me to work on my assignment easily. Interviewer: For what do you use it? Respondent: (long pause) I normally use it for my research activities. Interviewer: Do you use your laptop/device for social media during class time? Respondent: (smiling sheepishly) Yes. (Long pause) Especially when am bored with the class. Interviewer: For what reasons? Respondent: (shifting in her seat) Whenever am bored, visiting a social website makes me to be cheerful. Interviewer: In general, how often do you check social media sites while in lectures or tutorials? Tell me a bit, about what drives you to check those sites during class time. Respondent: (Long pause) Once in a lecture. The key thing that drives me to check the site is whenever the lecture is boring. Once I check the site, I get the desire to continue using this site. Interviewer: Do you find it to be a distraction to you in lectures or tutorials? Respondent: Yes (long pause). Whenever I check the site, all my concentration is shifted towards the site rather than the lecture. Interviewer: If yes, in what ways is it a distraction? Please describe how it affects your ability to focus on the material. Respondent: It shifts my concentration from class work towards the social media thus making me to miss out the important points of the lecture. Interviewer: When you are in class, do you find yourself glancing at other students who are using social media sites around you? How come? Respondent: Yes. (Long pause) They tent to distract my attention while in a lecture. Interviewer: If so, how does the use of social media by other students in class affect your concentration? Respondent: (Smiling) It reduces my concentration in a tutorial. Interviewer: Some instructors ban the use of laptops and other electronic devices in lectures. How would you feel if a policy against the use of laptops/devices in class was introduced in a course you were taking? Please elaborate/explain. Respondent: (shaking her head) So bad. (Long pause) It would make me to be dosing in lectures whenever I feel bored. I would also miss out many things in the site. Interviewer: What about if it were implemented university-wide? Respondent: I would accept the change even though, it may make my life i school to be frustrating. Interviewer: Can you think of a time when a course instructor used social media during lecture/tutorial? Please describe it. Respondent: Yes. (long pause) The instructor referred to it as a co-teaching. (shifting in the seat)The lecture was divided into two sections. He taught us for thirty minutes then visited a social site. (smiling) Another teacher was waiting on the chat list. Our instructor connected his laptop on a projector and selected video chat. In the next thirty minutes, we were able to listen to the teacher on the social website. (Shaking her head) The teacher on the site answered all our questions. Our instructor summarized the lesson and disconnected the chat. It was such an amazing lecture. Interviewer: How about as part of a course overall? How was it used? Respondent: (Pause) In the overall course the social media was used as a means of research. The instructor could check the site to see different views concerning a certain topic then make a conclusion on that topic. Interviewer: What are your views on online courses? How do you think it affects your use of social media? Respondent: Online course is a course in which a student accesses the reading material and the test online. The student submits all her assignments online. Online courses may tend to minimize the time spend on social media. This is so because the many assignments given on the online courses would engage a student in her computer thus reducing time for social media. Academic engagement Interviewer: What does it mean to you to be academically engaged? Describe the qualities. Respondent: To be academic engaged means that a student is attached to her academic life. Interviewer: Prompt: Describe someone who you would consider to be academically engaged. What do they do? Respondent: Someone who is engaged academically would always participate in school activities. She would take part in discussion, try hard in her class work, finish homework, being attentive, avoid destructors, and participate in extracurricular activities. Interviewer: How do you think social media affects academic engagement among students? Respondent: Social media reduces the academic engagement of students. This is so because it reduces the time that a student would spent in school activities hence less academic engagement. Interviewer: In what ways do you think social media can enhance academic engagement? Respondent: Social media can enhance academic engagement through digital media of communication in which students could have group discussions through social media. Interviewer: Describe a time when social media helped you with your studies. How was it helpful? Respondent: (shifting in her seat)There is a time when I had some difficulties in handling questions within my study area. I posted all this questions on a social media. Within no time the questions were answered. (nodding) By the use of social media, a friend was able to explain to me all the answers to the question. Interviewer: In what ways do you think social media hinders academic engagement? Respondent: Social media hinders academic engagement by pushing students from academic to social engagement. This makes them to take a long time on social media compared to the academic activities. Interviewer: How does social media affect your study habits? Respondent: Social media reduces the period that I spend in my school work. In this regard, it makes me to have poor study habits. Interviewer: How does social media affect your ability to be organized? Respondent: It equips me with new ideas that make me to be more organised. Interviewer: Do you find yourself checking your notifications frequently while you’re studying? Can you explain why you do this (or why not)? Respondent: Yes. (long Pause) I am always anxious to read the notifications. Interviewer: How does social media affect your level of concentration while studying? Do you feel it prolongs the time you spend studying? Respondent: No. It does not prolong the study time, but reduces it. Prompt: For example, have you ever heard some news through social media that has affected your concentration throughout the day? Interviewer: Describe a time when social media hurt your studies. In other words, have you ever blamed social media for not being able to complete your assignment on time? Or how you did on an exam? Or how much sleep you got before a school day? In what way was it responsible? In other words, was it related to the time you spent on social media or something else? Please explain. Respondent: (long Pause) One evening, I unconsciously got attached to a social media up to so late. I slept at 3.a.m. The effect was that the following morning, I woke up so late for my tutorial. I missed an extremely crucial lecture which later on affected my grade. Interviewer: Did this experience result in a change in behaviour? Please tell me about it. Interviewer: What would you say has been the effect of your social media activities on your grades? Respondent: (Smiling sheepishly) Yes. I decided to stop checking the media at night. Social media had an effect on reducing the performance grades. Interviewer: Do you think you could have gotten a better grade in a course if you had spent less time on social media? Respondent: Yes. (Shaking her head) I would spend more time in reading hence good grades. Interviewer: When you meet someone new in a course, do you immediately add them to your network? a. What are your reasons for doing this (or why not)? Respondent: (Smiling) Yes. Adding them on my network would help me to have some time to socialize with her later. Related aspects Interviewer: How do you think your usage of social media affects other aspects of your life? (e.g. work performance, driving, volunteer activities, exercise, eating habits, sleep, etc.) Respondent: Social media improves my performance on other different aspects of my life. For example, it enables me to get employment since many employers posts job advertisement on the social media. Interviewer: How has your usage of social media affected your relationships with (ask each one): - family? - friends? - romantic interests? - work colleagues? - classmates? - Course Directors? - Teaching Assistants? Respondent: Social media had improved my relationship with my family, friends, classmates, work colleagues, and romantic interests. This is so because it improves the communication between us and increase the number of time that we communicate hence making the bond to be strong. On the other hand, social media makes the course director and the teaching assistance to be able to send to me course instructions at any time. Read to respondent: Thank you, I appreciate the time you’ve taken to speak with me. I have no further questions for you, do you have any for me? Respondent: No thanks. The pleasure is all mine. PART TWO. Methodological critique and insights. Research is defined as the organized and systematic manner of looking for answers to questions. Systematic in the sense that there are definite sets of steps and procedures that are followed and organized. In this case, these procedures are used in carrying out the research. Finding the expected answers is the ultimate goal of any research work. Questions are as well, an important component in any research work. In case, a question is not evoked, then certainly, there will be no use for answers. Every research work is the focus on certain useful information and research is successful if answers to the questions can be found. In this study, there are two research methods that have been used in gathering data. These are qualitative interview, and a survey. From the above survey and the quantitative interview, it is evident the qualitative interview focused on obtaining mainly verbal data instead of measurements. The prime purpose of a qualitative interview was to give out a detailed and complete description of the topic of research. This means that the qualitative interview was a representation of a qualitative research method. Qualitative research is a method of inquiry used in various academic disciplines, commonly in social sciences, in market research and in other disciplines. It involves analyzing of data such as video pictures, words from interviews, video pictures or objects like an artifact. The objective of doing a qualitative research is to have deeper knowledge of human behaviour, as well as, the governing reasons for such behaviour. This method of research seeks to investigate the why and the how of making decisions, but not just about when, where and what. Therefore, focus yet smaller samples are required than the lager samples. Conventionally, qualitative research method provides information limited to certain cases that are studied and any other general conclusions are but assertions. Quantitative research methods then applied in seeking empirical supports to the hypothesis. There are four types of qualitative designs namely case study, ethnography, phenomenology and grounded theory. Generally, quantitative research has a number of characteristics. Data is normally directly collected from the field through document analysis, direct observation and through interviews. The data is rich, descriptive narratives. The process of orientation involves how and why behaviour occur. It involves inductive analysis of data. The perspective of the participants defines what is real. According to the emerging research designs, there is change in design plans relating to how data is collected, analyzed and understood. In this respect, in line with natural settings behaviour is learned as it occurs, and beliefs are related to the natural settings. This method has a number of merits and demerits. These include; Merits. 1. The data obtained in this study is based on the subjects’ categorical meaning. 2. It is useful in studying in depth cases that are limited. 3. It is used in describing complex phenomena. 4. It provides case information for individuals. 5.It conducts an analysis and cross-case comparisons. Limitations. 1. The knowledge that is produced in this study lacks generalization. 2. It is normally difficult to make quantitative predications. 3. Testing theories and hypothesis of a pool of large participants is difficult. 4. Collection of data and data analysis in this research normally takes lots of time in comparison to quantitative research. . Survey, on the other hand, focused more on classifying and counting statistical model and features that explain whatever was observed. The survey was narrow, focused and conclusive where as the quantitative interview was broad, covered the whole picture of the research and was extremely explanatory. Apart from this, in the qualitative interview, the researcher served as the basic instrument for gathering data. She employed different strategies of gathering data in accordance to the research approach. In this respect, the survey was a representation of a quantitative research, whereas the qualitative interview was an example of a qualitative research (William 14). The term survey is used widely in research work. It refers to the process of selecting a relatively large sample of people from a predetermined population in which the researcher is interested in. This process is followed by collecting a small quantity of the data out of the selected individuals. This information is then used by the researcher in making inferences concerning the wider population. In using the survey, collection of data are in a standardized form usually achieved through interviews or by a questionnaire. Surveys are always designed in away to providing snapshots of state of things at any specific time’. This strategy is suited to descriptive type of studies, although limited to aspects of a situation. The method has some disadvantages and advantages. These include: Advantages: 1. The research gives data that are based on empirical data. 2. The coverage of many events imply more likelihood of some other approaches to obtaining data that are based on representative samples. This may be generalizable for a whole population. 3. Survey produces large data within a short time at a fairly low cost. This implies that researchers can come up with small time-span for a given project. This in effect assists, in proper planning, as well as, in delivering end results. Disadvantages 1. How significance data is become neglected should the concerned researcher put much emphasis on the coverage while excluding the account of the implications of the data for problems, issues, or theories. 2. There is the likelihood of the data produced lacking depths on the topic that is being investigated. 3. It is difficult to control and to secure a high response rates to a survey. This happens when survey is done by post, as well as, when carried out over the telephone or face to face. A survey is an example of a quantitative research. In social sciences, quantitative research is used to refer to systematic investigation of a phenomenon through a computation technique. The aim of the quantitative research is to employ and come up with mathematical theories or models that pertain to the phenomena. Measurement processes are key elements as far as quantitative research is concerned since they provide fundamental connections linking mathematical expressions and empirical observations. Therefore, quantitative research is used in analyzing numerical data and has some merits and demerits. These include: Merits. 1. It involves the validation and testing of the theories that already existed. 2. It involves tasting of the hypotheses, which was constructed before data collection. 3. It can lead to generalization of data especially if the data obtained is based on the random sufficient samples. 4. It is particularly useful in the collection of data, which allow predictions that are quantitative to be made. Limitations. 1. Categories used by the researcher may fail to indicate the understanding of the local constituency. 2. Focus on the testing of the hypothesis may make a researcher miss out the occurring phenomena. 3. The Knowledge obtained from this study may be extremely general and abstract that the direct application in the contexts, individuals, local situations may not be possible. In addition to this, qualitative interview was extremely subjective in its approach because it sought to get to the understanding of the human behaviour and the intentions behind such behaviour. On the other hand, in the survey study, the researcher remained objective in the study thus separating the research from the subject matter. In this respect, the survey sought to for measurements that are precise and targeting the concept that answer questions of inquiry. As a researcher, I would prefer a qualitative interview to the survey. This is so because it is a method that would help a researcher to obtain first hand data that are detailed. The survey would not give out detailed data because of the short answer questions. Different debates have come up concerning the type of method that is best compared to the other. This debate is not solved since the two methods have merits and demerits that may differ depending on the subject under research. Whenever the objectives of a study are to find inquiry of evidence that is numerical then the survey would be the best method to utilize for the research. However, if the study requires a detailed explanation of a certain phenomena then a qualitative interview would be the appropriate that a researcher would use (William 24). Despite the many merits and demerits of the survey and the qualitative interview, a research involving the two methods would give out data that are extremely reliable for the study. This method would combine qualitative and quantitative methods to collecting, reporting and interpreting data. This method is referred to as a mixed method of gathering data. Types of mixed method designs are explanatory, exploratory, and triangulation. In the explanatory design, the quantitative data are collected first with qualitative data collection following. For Exploratory design, qualitative data are collected first with quantitative data collection following. In Triangulation method quantitative and qualitative data are collected at the same time to help in providing a more comprehensive and complete set of data. Work Cited William, Lawrence. Quantitative and qualitative research. New York: Oxford publishers.2006.Print. Read More