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Undergraduate Students’ Academic Information and Help-Seeking Behaviours using an Anonymous Facebook Confessions Page

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Best Practitioner Paper / Prix du meilleur article par un professionnelThis research examines undergraduate students’ academic help-seeking behaviours by mining anonymous posts from a university Facebook Confessions page. From a dataset of 2,712 public posts, researchers identified 708 Confessions (26.1%) that supported student-student learning exchanges. Using a mixed methods methodology informed by a social constructivist framework, analysis of these social media interactions demonstrates that students use Confessions posts to legitimately inform their undergraduate learning and support their academic experience. Researchers conclude that Facebook Confessions can enable rich academic help-seeking and other information behaviours, and that these sites should be taken seriously by administrators, faculty, researchers, and students.Cette recherche examine les comportements académiques de recherche d'aide des étudiants de premier cycle en procédant à l’extraction de publications anonymes sur une page Facebook de confessions à l’université. À partir d'un jeu de données de 2 712 publications publiques, les chercheurs ont identifié 709 confessions (26,1%) qui étaient en faveur des échanges entre étudiants visant l’entraide dans les apprentissages. En utilisant une méthodologie de méthodes mixtes guidée par un cadre socioconstructiviste, l'analyse de ces interactions sur les médias sociaux démontre que les étudiants utilisent les confessions pour guider légitimement leur apprentissage de premier cycle et soutenir leur expérience académique. Les chercheurs en tirent la conclusion que les confessions Facebook peuvent permettre une recherche d’aide universitaire approfondie et d'autres comportements informationnels, et que ces sites devraient être pris au sérieux par les administrateurs, les professeurs, les chercheurs et les étudiants.
Undergraduate Students’ Academic Information and
Help-Seeking Behaviours using an Anonymous Facebook
Confessions Page (Paper)
Richard Hayman
Associate Professor & Digital Initiatives Librarian
Library, Mount Royal University
rhayman@mtroyal.ca
Erika E. Smith
Assistant Professor & Faculty Developer
Academic Development Centre, Mount Royal University
eesmith@mtroyal.ca
Hannah Storrs
Undergraduate Psychology Student & Research Assistant
Mount Royal University
hstor460@mtroyal.ca
Abstract
This research examines undergraduate students’ academic help-seeking behaviours by mining
anonymous posts from a university Facebook Confessions page. From a dataset of 2,712 public
posts, researchers identified 708 Confessions (26.1%) that supported student-student learning
exchanges. Using a mixed methods methodology informed by a social constructivist framework,
analysis of these social media interactions demonstrates that students use Confessions posts to
legitimately inform their undergraduate learning and support their academic experience.
Researchers conclude that Facebook Confessions can enable rich academic help-seeking and
other information behaviours, and that these sites should be taken seriously by administrators,
faculty, researchers, and students.
1. Purpose
This mixed methods research examines a Facebook Confessions page at a Canadian
undergraduate university to explore the evolving and diverse nature of anonymous, online
students help-seeking and information sharing behaviours using social media. The research
addresses the following research questions: (RQ1) Do undergraduates use their university
Facebook Confessions page for help-seeking to support their post-secondary learning
experiences? If so, (RQ2) what is the nature of these interactions, and what post-secondary
teaching or learning considerations may they reveal?
2. Relevant Literature
2
The use of Facebook among university students continues to raise complex issues for those
teaching, researching, and supporting post-secondary education. Social media tools and
technologies are blurring the boundaries between personal and academic educational interactions
(Jones, Blackey, Fitzgibbon, & Chew, 2010; Smith, 2016). The rise of anonymous Facebook
Confessions pages at many higher education institutions (Budryk, 2013) draws a diversity of
post-secondary students to publicly, but anonymously, share their perspectives, opinions, and
questions about a wide variety of topics with the world. Several researchers have examined
issues of relationships, sex, and cyberbullying on Facebook Confessions pages generally (e.g.
Barari, 2016; Houlihan & Houlihan, 2014; Dominguez-Whitehead, Whitehead, & Bowman,
2017). Amador and Amador (2014) presented their case study for the use of Facebook to support
academic advising, while Clark-Gordon, Workman, and Linvill (2017) highlighted that
anonymous information seeking and sharing behaviours do occur frequently among students
using other social media platforms. However, none of the existing research has examined
whether post-secondary students use their anonymous Facebook Confessions pages for academic
purposes, particularly for online help-seeking and other information behaviours that inform their
university learning experience.
3. Research Design & Data Collection
This study used exploratory mixed methods research (MMR) as an overarching methodology,
under which qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis was conducted (Creswell &
Plano Clark, 2018). Social constructivism guided this research, a framework where the
participants’ perceptions, meanings, and views are the focus. Within learning theory, social
constructivists view knowledge to be constructed via social negotiation that engages multiple
perspectives and experiences (Driscoll, 2005; Woolfolk, Winne, Perry, & Shapka, 2010). Within
research on educational technologies, alignment between the affordances of social media and the
premises of social constructivism are established (Dron & Anderson, 2014). This study uses
definitions of help and information seeking (Thomas, Tewell, & Willson, 2017) in congruence
with established digital literacy frameworks, since Bawden (2008) notes that abilities to leverage
“people networks” as sources of information, help, and advice, are a key part of developing
digital literacy (p. 20).
Researchers used the Facebook Graph API to collect a dataset of 2,712 confessions posted
publicly and anonymously to a Canadian, undergraduate-focused university’s Facebook
Confessions page during one academic year (July 2016 to June 2017). Data mining captured the
content of each confession (i.e., text of the original post), date and time of posting, any reactions
(i.e., likes and shares), and a hyperlink for each post to ensure any comments or replies were
easily accessible. Researchers independently analyzed each post, and using intercoder strategies
they developed and applied inclusion criteria to include only confessions with an explicit
help-seeking or other information behaviour of an academic nature (e.g., questions about
programs, courses, grades, studying, etc.). Posts lacking an academic or educational topic, such
as social or personal interactions (e.g., relationships, parties, etc.), were excluded.
Using generic qualitative strategies (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) researchers performed a content
analysis informed by constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) and discourse analysis
3
techniques (Potter, 2008; Gee, 2014). Researchers analyzed all included confessions to identify
emerging themes by applying specific, descriptive coding reflecting the language that students
themselves used in their confessions. Capturing both descriptive and process elements,
researchers used intercoder strategies via a consensus model (Saldana, 2016) to ensure
consistency and maintain rigour when assigning codes. The quantitative analysis focused on
primarily on descriptive data, including percentage and frequency, to track whether specific
topics or themes emerge at certain times of year.
5. Findings
Of the 2,712 total original confessions, 708 (26.1%) met the inclusion criteria. Regarding RQ1,
the analysis of 709 confessions confirmed that undergraduate students use the Confessions page
to support their university learning. Researchers readily identified numerous academic
help-seeking and other learning-related information behaviours despite the non-academic nature
of the Confessions page. Addressing RQ2, researchers identified several instances of students
exchanging theoretical, practical, and academic information specifically related to their
undergraduate education. These topics were wide-ranging and varied, and included information
queries related to university (e.g., “Are there any credit online courses? If so where?”), help
seeking for course recommendations (e.g., “Is [course code] a difficult course? Opinions
anyone?”), and genuine cries for help in dealing with the demands and pressures of student life
(e.g., “I'm feeling extremely overwhelmed with everything. It's my first year and I need help but
I don't know where to go and what to do about it. Anyone able to suggest where I can go?”).
Further qualitative analysis identified several core teaching and learning themes emerging from
the confessions, including help-seeking for: academic standing and performance; administrative
and technology processes; student identity and emotion; university transitioning; courses and
studying; programs and degrees; and, tuition and finances. Researchers also discovered a range
of information behaviours within the process coding, from offering help to providing unsolicited
advice or warnings, and students using their Confessions posts to comment on or moderate other
students’ behaviours.
6. Conclusions & Significance
This research shows that alongside rumours, cyberbullying, and other social networking
behaviours that students already experience using Facebook generally, these undergraduate
students used their Confessions page for legitimate academic help-seeking and other information
behaviours to inform their university studies. Compared to previous Facebook research, such as
Selwyn’s (2009) finding that only 4% of Facebook posts reflected academic aspects of university
learning, the nature and frequency of student help-seeking related to post-secondary teaching and
learning revealed in this study suggests that Facebook Confessions pages like this should be
taken seriously by higher education administrators, faculty, researchers, and students alike.
Understanding the ways students use these Confessions for undergraduate help-seeking and
online learning behaviours has implications for both research and practice, especially when the
anonymous forum can be connected to a specific institution. The full presentation will include
discussion of these impacts, as well as the broader questions raised when conducting a
qualitatively-driven mixed methods study using larger social media datasets.
4
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