Pilot Study- Portfolio 2
Pilot Study- Fall 2012
The mixed methods course that I signed up for this Summer has helped me think of a topic of my interest that I would like to explore: The use of social media to enhance learning in higher education. Initially my interest in this topic grew from my own teaching practices in which I use social media to communicate with my students and develop learning tasks, as well as from coursework which introduced me to affordances of technology supported learning environments, constructivism, and designing learning enviroments.
My plan is to conduct a pilot study in Fall 2012 to investigate the use of social media by faculty members at GMU. I am planning to start my research by interviewing 5 faculty members who will be purposively sampled based on the frequency of their use of social media in their courses. The purpose of the faculty interviews is to understand their experiences teaching courses without the use of social media as compared to classes with social media, and the types of tasks that they thought were most helpful for student learning. Based on the faculty approval, I will ask them to share a survey with their students. The purpose of this survey is to measure perceptions of student learning through the use of social media in their respective courses. The survey questions will focus on the students’ experiences using social media in the respective course and the difference that it makes in their learning if any. Also the students will rate the tasks that were assigned to them through social media based on their positive impact on their learning if any.
