EDUC 994- Internship
The EDUC 994 internship course requires students to get field experience, however, for the purpose of exploring my research interests, I conducted a pilot study which broadened my research skills perspectives as well as my research focus. I am glad that I was able to conduct this pilot study prior to the proposal course because it made me realize that research is a complex process that requires, careful design planning, concise research questions, and a lot of exposure to the literature. In previous courses, I learned how to design research studies and I have conducted some, but in this pilot study, I worked on the whole process to produce a final report. Throughout the process, several challenges came up. First, I noticed that my study, which was mixed methods, focused on two separate research questions which could be each addressed in a separate study, however, because I received IRB approval for the study, I decided to stick to the initial question. After several revisions, the main research questions was the following:
How are faculty members using social media across the disciplines in higher education, and how do faculty and students perceive the role of social media in the learning?
The two questions are presented in different colors. I think the mistake that I made was initially related to the faculty interview questions and student survey questions which guided my research question. Although I designed these instruments, I wanted to get the most out of the interviews and the surveys which impacted my research focus. More specifically the following questions were addressed in the study:
- In what ways are faculty members using social media in higher education?
- What are the most common learning activities that faculty assign for students to complete through social media?
- What perceptions do faculty have about their students’ learning using social media tools?
- What perceptions do students have about their learning through social media tools?
Another challenge that I faced was related to the analysis of the learning activities that faculty assign through social media. In the beginning I was confused about how to analyze the types of learning activities; I wondered if a framework is necessary to base my analysis on or I could analyze the data based on my observations. Finally, I decided to look for social media existing framewroks and I found 3 frameworks that have common attributes. I combined all three framework in a simplified one that could assist me in categorizing the types of activities that faculty assign through social media. Since this framework was not tested, I noticed that it could not be considered valid, but I sticked to it because I got stuck with the data that I had collected.
Since this was a mixed methods study, I used the framework to analyze the learning activities and combined the themes with common threads collected from faculty responses to the interviews and students’ responses to the survey. It was interesting to study how faculty responses compared to their students’ concerning their perceptions of the use of social media in their courses. Results from the five faculty interviews and 21 students’ responses revealed  that faculty and students perceived social media as playing an important role in (a) extending learning beyond the classroom, (b) triggering students to use new technology, (c) giving the students an opportunity to create personal learning environments, and most importantly (d) facilitating and enhancing students’ learning.
I learned that part of the study focused on the technology and part focused on the pedagogy. Sometimes, the technology offers more features than the faculty use and students’ evaluations might be biased as well as impacted by the learning activities that are implemented through tool. This gave me insights into the direction that I want to follow in my dissertation study.
Faculty- informed consent, Faculty interviews, Student Informed Consent form, Student Survey, Human Subjects Application Form, Ghania-Pilot Study- Final Paper Revised