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Yahoo! Answers as a Space for Informal Language Learning

Author

Listed:
  • Giuliana Dettori

    (Institute for Educational Technology, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via De Marini 6, Genoa 16149, Italy)

  • Simone Torsani

    (Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Genoa, Piazza Santa Sabina 2, Genoa 16124, Italy)

Abstract

Online social spaces, where users can exchange information, opinions and resources, have achieved wide popularity and are gaining attention in many research fields, including education. Their actual potential support to learning, however, still requires investigation, especially because portals can widely differ as concerns purpose and internal structure. This paper aims to contribute in this respect, by concentrating on question answering, a kind of social space not yet widely discussed in education. We analyzed a small corpus of posts from the Languages section of Yahoo! Answers Italy, checking if the questions reveal some inclination to learning or just the desire to obtain a service and if the answers provided by the community members can be considered as reliable sources of knowledge. Our analysis highlights the presence of a variety of question/answer types, from mere information exchange or help for task completion, up to language-related questions prompting valuable short lessons. The quality of answers may widely vary as concerns pertinence, correctness and richness of supporting elements. We found a high number of purely task-oriented questions and answers, but also a higher number of learning-oriented questions and correct, informative answers. This suggests that this kind of social space actually has valuable potential for informal learning.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuliana Dettori & Simone Torsani, 2014. "Yahoo! Answers as a Space for Informal Language Learning," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-13, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:3:y:2014:i:4:p:841-853:d:41612
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rich Gazan, 2011. "Social Q&A," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(12), pages 2301-2312, December.
    2. Yunjie (Calvin) Xu & Bernard C.Y. Tan & Li Yang, 2006. "Who will you ask? An empirical study of interpersonal task information seeking," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 57(12), pages 1666-1677, October.
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