The Impact of Social Media Conducting Independent Enquiry About Social MediaPart A & Part B

sociology.hku.hk/impact-social-media

Welcome to Independent Enquiry Study !

• School-based assessment

• 20% of your DSE final mark

• Research on any issues related to the DSE LS curriculum

• Submit a report of not more than 4,500 words

Structured Enquiry Approach

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How will this course be useful for me?

Deeper understanding of social media

Learning how research is done, meeting researchers

Exploring academic texts

Step by step guidance on how to carry out your IES

Connecting with students in the UK

A Step by Step Guide

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Part A• What are the issues I should focus my research on?

Part B• What concepts and methods are relevant to your IES?

Part C• What areas should I explain in detail for my enquiry issue?

Part D• How do I formulate an argument?

Part A: Problem Definition What are the issues I should focus my research on?

1. Getting You Thinking……

• What socially significant issue do you feel interested in?

• What are the debates related the issue?

Let’s take social media as an example!

Video Watching: Why do you think that social media is significant to research on? (p.4)

• Social media is very popular and its impact is widespread.• Social media changes the way people communicate with each other.• Studies of social media may have policy implications etc.

Watch this video at: https://youtu.be/Pr2lJ3efShk

a. What’s debatable? (p.6)

• The impact of social media on education.

• While some people believe social media has detrimental effect on academic performance of students, others believe that social media benefits both formal education and informal education.

b. Whose view might be relevant to the debate?• Students, teachers, parents etc.

2. Choosing a Controversial Issue

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How do teachers and students use social media?

How useful do parents from various socio-economic classes see social media in terms of their children’s

formal and information education?

How do teachers develop school policy to regulate the use of social media in school?

3. Choosing Your Focus Questions

Kahoot: Which of the enquiry questions are good?

• Controversial

• Allows you to discuss from multiple perspectives

• Specific enough

• Feasible to collect data to research on

• Focus questions are relevant to the enquiry question

Good Enquiry and Focus Questions Are:

• What is your enquiry issue and major enquiry question?

• Why is your study significant? Who might the results be useful for and why? Could your results be used to create social policy? If so, how?

• Why is your study significant? Who might the results be useful for and why? Could your results be used to create social policy? If so, how?

• What controversy(ies) are you going to discuss in your IES?

• What do you aim to achieve?

• What focus questions do you ask?

• Who do you want to study?

• Where would you base your research and why?

Your Turn…… P.9-10 of Student Pack

If you are interested in debates related to social media… Check them out on p.11

Education Individualism Privacy

Gender relations Culture

and many more…

Part B: Relevant Concepts and Knowledge Facts / Data

What concepts and methods are relevant to your IES?

1. What is a Concept? Example: What is gender?

Gender is biological. Men and women have different bodies from birth.

I disagree, gender is social. We learn how to act like a man

or a woman as we grow up.

A “key concept” speaks about an important idea that a number of different people, normally experts, might agree on. Not everyone will agree on a particular concept, though, and different people may suggest different understandings of a key concept.

• Make abstract concepts measurable so they are concrete enough to observe.

2. How Do You Operationalise a Concept?

Enqu

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How do teachers and students use social media?

How useful do parents from various socio-economic classes see social media in terms of their children’s

formal and information education?

How do teachers develop school policy to regulate the use of social media in school?

Define the Key Terms of Your Enquiry Question and Focus Questions!

Operationalization: How Do You Make these Abstract Concepts Measurable?

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Social media

Education Formal education

Socio-economic classes

positivist

hawthorn effect consent

Informal education School policy

Example: Let’s Define and Operationalize Social Media (p.12-14)

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What do you think social media is? Do you find it difficult todefine social media? Why?

Example: Let’s Define and Operationalize Social Media (p.12-14)

• How do the researchers of the Why We Post Project define social media?

• How is their definition different from the definition of previous studies?

• Why do they define social media in ways different from other researchers?

They define social media as a place within which people socialize and asthe contents people posted on social media platforms.

The researchers do not define social media as platforms for people tocommunicate with each other.

If social media is defined as platforms, then a comparative study of social media is not possible. There are no regional variations in how social media

platforms work. However, what people post on social media does haveregional variations. They define social media in different ways to suit theneeds of their research.

Example: Let’s Define and Operationalize Social Media (p.12-14)

• What do you think is the best way to define social media in your IES?

• How is your definition of social media useful to your analysis?

• How would you operationalise (to make measurable) the concept social media?

• What are the other key concepts in your enquiry question and focus questions? How would you define, operationalise and explain them?

sociology.hku.hk/social-media-concepts

For those who are interested in social media studies:

Your Turn…… P.27 of Student Pack

3. Choosing Your Research Method• Choose and justify the method you use to collect data

Secondary Data• Search through academic journals, government reports,

and research papers etc.

Video Watching: Questionnaire VS Interviews (P.19)

Watch this video at: https://youtu.be/1_Q9EkKYUk0

Video Watching: Questionnaire VS Interviews (P.19)

Kahoot: Which methods are suitable?

• Which methods would be most suitable for and why?

• Who would you wish to research as your questionnaires respondents or interviewees? Why?

• What sorts of skills might you need?

• How would you record and analyse your results?

• What have you learnt from this activity about the challenges of researching the impact of social media? How can you overcome those challenges?

Your Turn…… P.21 of Student Pack

What to do after collecting data?

Upcoming…