IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ireced/v30y2019ic5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of using Facebook as a discussion forum in an online principles of economics course: Results of a randomized controlled trial

Author

Listed:
  • Harmon, Oskar R.
  • Tomolonis, Paul A.

Abstract

This paper makes a comparison between using social media or traditional Course Management System (CMS) discussion groups in a fully online Principles of Microeconomics course. Students were randomly assigned to a discussion forum in either Facebook or CMS to discern a difference in the level of engagement and learning outcomes. The popular hypothesis is that students using social media have greater engagement with the class and higher learning outcomes relative to students using a CMS platform. Reasons for the positive effect include the ease of use and student familiarity with social media, which allows them to make more connections and gain a deeper understanding of the course material through discussions with others. Contrary to the widely held view, the results of this study suggest that participation in the treatment Facebook group is associated with declining student engagement and a reduction in the semester course average of 3 to 5 points on a 100-point scale.

Suggested Citation

  • Harmon, Oskar R. & Tomolonis, Paul A., 2019. "The effects of using Facebook as a discussion forum in an online principles of economics course: Results of a randomized controlled trial," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 1-1.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ireced:v:30:y:2019:i:c:5
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iree.2019.100157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477388018300112
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iree.2019.100157?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martina Maněnová & Janet Wolf & Martin Skutil & Jitka Vítová, 2021. "Combating the Coronavirus Pandemic in Small Schools," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-15, June.
    2. Hadsell, Lester, 2020. "Not for want of trying: Effort and Success of women in principles of microeconomics," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    3. Barreiro-Gen, María, 2020. "Evaluating the effects of mobile applications on course assessment: A quasi-experiment on a macroeconomics course," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    4. Middleditch, Paul & Moindrot, Will & Rudkin, Simon, 2022. "Teaching with Twitter: An extension to the traditional learning environment," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Online; Social media; Facebook;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ireced:v:30:y:2019:i:c:5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-review-of-economics-education .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.