In this paper I measure first year student Facebook usage as part of a broader PhD study into the influence of social media usage on the success of students in higher education. A total of 906 students were asked to complete 3 surveys on Facebook usage with their peers, for two consecutive years (2011-2012 and 2012-2013). The different purposes for Facebook usage, in addition to whether or not students used (self-created) Facebook-groups, were measured and the relationship between the use of pages compared to the purpose of Facebook usage. This resulted in significant correlations between the purpose of Facebook usage and the use of different pages, as well as correlations between the purpose and use of different pages. This study hereby explores the variation in student Facebook usage and provides valuable insight into the potential value of Facebook for students in an educational setting, without the interference of teachers. It is also the next logical step in revising existing integration and engagement theories that predict student success in higher education in contemporary society.
Facebook has become one of the most prominent tools for social networking over the last few years. Since its establishing in 2004, more and more players have made use of it: not just ordinary users willing to find their old friends and to get back into contact with them, but also, for example, more and more players from the cultural scene. These latter ones include cultural institutions willing to experiment with new ways of getting in touch with their traditional audiences but also willing to attract new audiences (like a younger audience, who is supposed to be more present on such social media); artists, who use it to create a community to share information, to promote their own creations but, more recently, also to collaborate on common project; and finally also libraries. This paper intends to explore the use of Facebook in university libraries by making an empirical analysis of current practices. In doing so, the paper builds on the knowledge gained in a previous study on the way in which Flemish cultural institutions make use of the possibilities offered by social media to communicate with their audiences and to promote themselves [2]. The analysis on current uses we performed will help us sample existing practices and help us derive some general ideas for future best practices. And this will help libraries to better profile themselves and communicate better with their old and new audiences.
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This study investigates the way in which first year students use Facebook. An overview of recent studies on Facebook usage and a survey is presented. The latter is an online questionnaire on the Facebook activities of 618 students (78.6 % of all first year students) of the Media department of Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Previous studies identified four major Facebook activities: 1) information sharing receiving/providing information and generating ideas), 2) sharing for educational purposes (for learning, problem solving and sharing work), 3) social purposes (retrieving personal information about others or themselves, chatting, making appointments and generally keeping in touch) and 4) leisure (gaming and relaxing). The questionnaire’s answers were grouped accordingly and then compared, to provide a better understanding of how students use Facebook. In addition, a range of variables were measured in the survey,in order to map student characteristics such as gender, age, place of birth, living arrangements and the socio-economic status of their parents. Those variables were compared with the Facebook activities using PAWS Statistics 18.0 (formally SPSS)to determine any correlation
