Literature Review

Of the six articles I collected for this project, all of them performed some type of experiment to test the effectiveness of Twitter in the classroom. One of the best articles I collected was called “The Effect of Twitter on College Student Engagement in Grades,” by R. Juno, G. Heibergert, and E. Loken. This is directed related to my research question that was specifically about college student use of Twitter in the classroom. The study outlined Twitter use in a first year seminar class for pre-health majors. There were seven sections of this seminar – four were randomly selected to be the experimental group, and three were randomly chosen to be part of the control group. The experiment lasted fourteen weeks, and at the beginning of the experiment, students were given a Twitter tutorial in order to introduce those who had no exposure to Twitter.  This study concluded that Twitter gave students a richer discussion of class materials. The study also concluded that students were more apt to using more time outside class with Twitter.

            The critique I have this study is that Junco, et al., based most of their conclusions off the grades the students received at the end of the class. I personally believe that grades are not always an indicator of classroom engagement. Another critique is that the diversity of the study needs to be widened. I was surprised to find that 92% of the subjects were Caucasian (6% were Latino, 3% were native American, and 1% were Asian Americans). My experiment would widen the amount of diversity and use more than one university for experimenting. There also needs to be a focus put on variety among majors. All of the students within this study were pre-health majors.

            There rest of the articles I collected gave similar experimental methods. Classrooms were given tutorials and observed on how they were engaging. I believe this is the best method, because it proves with specific real life examples that are demonstrated. Seeing the examples of conversations was an added bonus, because the reader was able to see just how easy it was so form study groups, ask questions, or make conversation.