Facebook, Writing and Language Learner Variables at a Large Metropolitan Community College
Issue Date
2011-05-31Author
Dixon, Gregory A.
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
197 pages
Type
Dissertation
Degree Level
Ph.D.
Discipline
Curriculum and Teaching
Rights
This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This study gathered information on student engagement with Facebook, and described non-native English speakers' (NNS) expectations and experience. This also assessed the relationship this technology has with writing efficacy and compared NNS and native English speakers (NS) groups. Demographic data were collected and means were compared to examine how NNS benefit from engagement with Facebook. Correlations and ANOVA were performed. The study found, consistent with other studies, that the overwhelming majority of students are on Facebook, and that they tend to spend approximately 30 minutes per day on the site, checking in almost every day. The number of friends on Facebook did not correlate with any measures of writing success including: confidence, grades or success based on the assessment of the writing sample. Likewise the amount of time spent on Facebook per day had no significant relationship to any measures of writing success for NNS or NS. This study did not directly find that engagement with Facebook offered clear advantages to writing for either NNS or NS. The ways that NNS and NS engage with the site and how that relates to measures of writing success were not significantly different.
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