twitter-based seminars psychology micro-debating online for a group of undergraduate students
Post on 19-Feb-2016
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Twitter-based SeminarsPsychology micro-debating online for a group of
undergraduate students
Dr Maria Kontogianni
Students who took part
• Year 2 students as part of their Health Psychology module (pilot)• Year 3 students as part of Psychology of Life and Work module• 52 participants in the year 3 cohort
Set up and preparation
• All students receive 1 hour of ‘training’ in a computer room (twitter basics)
• They were instructed to create an account using their Name and Student ID number (i.e. @N012345Emma)
• They all follow the @NTUdebate account and @NTUdebate follows them
• They were instructed to always follow every tweet with the hash-tag #ntudebate
Every week
• I emailed them articles, podcasts, miniclips, audiofiles on a specific topic
• The topic is handpicked for being controversial/current/interesting (i.e. Male suicide, happiness, gay conversion therapy)
• The class is timetabled as DLT and students are reminded to ‘attend’ at 11am every Thursday (seminar time)
• We ‘meet’ at 11 on the dot• Students are encouraged to ‘come-in’ and say ‘hi’ or ‘good-morning’• Following that I ask the first question and manage the debate from
there
Who Participated?
Face to Face VS Twitter basedHow do they compare?
• Enjoyment• Accessibility• Participation/attendance• Belonginess• Reading materials in advance• Interaction with others• Expressing opinions• Usefulness• Motivation
Mean scores
Accessibility and belonginess
Reading
Expressing opinions and Interaction with group
Enjoyment and motivation
Qualitative comments• “because it was less personal I felt more confident in participating
and expressing my thoughts”• “it allowed the quieter members of the group to speak up more”• “I read a lot more due to the debates and it was good to hear the
views of people who don’t always talk up in class”• “as we were already on internet it was easier to follow links to
reading materials”• “being on a pc enables you to look up more sources easily, compared
to face to face seminars”• “you could take part from anywhere therefore it was easier to
participate”
• “it felt more of a group debate and it was refreshing. I found it great that I could search for links at the same time”
• “sometimes I don’t feel confident in class, but with twitter debates it gives me time to think and I don’t feel insecure about it all”
• “people shared ideas and opinions more than they would in a classroom setting”
• “I liked the luxury of being in my own environment and still engage”• “I liked being able to access materials that were relevant to people’s
tweets and back up my own tweets with refs so easily”• “the ‘tweetminars’ were a great idea. I actually got excited to be part
of it”• “I was in bed, on a bus, waiting for a train, anywhere! Being part of
uni on the go-genius!”• “I have copied the tweets into a word doc to ensure I use a wide
variety of ideas in my essay”
Twitter #NTUdebate
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