I Love Tweeting in Class, But -- A Qualitative Study of Student Perceptions of the Impact of Twitter in Large Lecture Classes

Journal of Public Relations Education
2017, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1-13
I Love Tweeting in Class, But…. A Qualitative
Study of Student Perceptions of the Impact of
Twitter in Large Lecture Classes
Jenny Tatone, University of Oregon
Tiffany Derville Gallicano, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Alec Tefertiller, University of Oregon
This is perhaps the first in-depth qualitative study that shares
insights about the perceived role of Twitter on the learning ex-
perience and the sense of classroom community from students’
perspectives in a large lecture class. We conducted four focus
groups with a cumulative total of 27 students from a class of 269
students. Based on our data, we propose ways that Twitter might
contribute to the sense of classroom community, which could be
tested through quantitative research. We also identify ways that
Twitter helps and undermines students’ learning experience. In
addition, we found a surprising theme about Twitter fostering a
sense of competition in the class when projected on the wall. This
study concludes with recommendations for integrating Twitter in
the large lecture class.
Millennials are known as digital natives-they grew up using digital media and are
accustomed to using it throughout the day (Porter Novelli, 2008; Válek & Sládek, 2012).
According to a Pew study, 90% ofAmericans ages 18-29 use social media and 86% of them
own a smartphone (Perrin, 2015). Smartphones and social media have become so essential
to the everyday lives of today’s young adults that some of them believe that they would feel
invisible without them (Boyd, 2014; Tatone, 2016). The publicly networked spaces that
digital media afford play a central role in shaping the ways young adults perceive their life
experiences––personally, socially, and culturally (Ito et al., 2009; Tatone, 2016). Educators
in various disciplines are exploring the potential of social media to play a powerful role in
another area of young adults’ experiences––their education (e.g., Cole, Hibbert, & Kehoe,
2013; D’Angelo & Woosley, 2007; Tyma, 2011).
All of the studies we found about Twitter in the context of large lecture classes
used surveys, experiments, or content analysis as a method, with the exception of Tyma’s
(2011) study, and her qualitative data resulted from one large class discussion, as opposed
to in-depth focus groups or interviews. The studies using quantitative methods have pro-
vided insight into the potential of Twitter to contribute to learning (e.g., Cole, Hibbert, &
Kehoe, 2013; Junco, Heibergert, & Loken, 2011; Kim et al., 2015) and to be a source of

Tatone, Gallicano & Tefertiller 2
distraction (e.g., Varadajan, 2011). Qualitative research can play a key role by helping ed-
ucators understand students’ in-depth explanations of how Twitter can help with learning,
interfere with learning, or do both, as well as discovering students’ recommendations for
how to integrate it into the large lecture classroom based on their experiences. We thought
our class would be an interesting context for this qualitative research because we tried out
various implementation strategies in response to student feedback with regard to the timing
of class tweets and projecting the Twitter feed on the wall. We also saw an opportunity to
explore any ways that Twitter might influence perceptions of the sense of classroom com-
munity, particularly given the lack of research about it in a large lecture context.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Strategies for Integrating Twitter
Instructors are discovering strategies to improve the use of Twitter in large lecture
classes. Despite the likelihood that most students have had some experience with Twitter,
the literature suggests that a tutorial about how to use Twitter effectively is helpful to
students (e.g., Junco et al., 2011; Tyma, 2011; Varadarajan, 2011). In addition, instructors
have found that students need reminders on occasion to keep tweets relevant to the class
lecture (e.g., Cole et al., 2013; Pollard, 2014). Some students want their instructors to send
these reminders, so they do not have to see the distracting content or call out their class-
mates who are tweeting irrelevant content (Tyma, 2011). A teaching assistant can handle
these reminders during the lecture when seeing off-topic tweets. Another issue is whether
the live tweets with the class hashtag should be projected onto the classroom wall. Elavsky,
Kumanyika, and Mislan (2011) noticed that participation on the class hashtag increased
when the Twitter feed was projected onto the wall in their large lecture media and democ-
racy class.
An additional consideration is whether Twitter can be used to sustain students’
attention during class. We found a study that recommended restricting Twitter use to desig-
nated Twitter intervals (Cole, Hibbert, & Kehoe, 2013) to help students focus on the lecture
content. In another study, Kim et al. (2015) used a game approach to sustaining students’
attention by presenting surprise Twitter questions on lecture slides and awarding points to a
limited number of students who correctly answered the questions on Twitter using the class
hashtag. Through a survey, participant observation, and exam scores from a comparison
of class sections in which Twitter was used and not used, the research team concluded that
their approach to integrating Twitter in the large lecture classroom helped students stay
focused during class and learn the material.
Junco, Heibergert, and Loken (2011) studied the related topic of class engagement
and produced a significantly higher engagement score in their class section in which Twit-
ter was used, as compared to their class section in which Twitter was not used. Thus, their
strategies for integrating Twitter into the large lecture classroom have credibility. They
applied the following principles for undergraduate education by Chickering and Gamson
(1987):
(1) Student/faculty contact (by adding Twitter as a communication channel)
(2) Cooperation among students (by encouraging students to use Twitter to ask each

Vol. 3 (1), 2017 Journal of Public Relations Education 3
other questions, collaborate on a project, and offer one another emotional support)
(3) Active learning (by asking students to use Twitter to connect the class material to
their own experiences)
(4) Prompt feedback (by responding quickly to students’ tweets)
(5) Emphasizing time on task (by expanding class discussions past class meeting days
through the Twitter channel)
(6) Communicating high expectations (by using Twitter to promote high quality work)
(7) Respecting diversity (by discussing diversity through the Twitter feed)
Junco applied Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) principles in a later study with his
colleagues when investigating the difference of requiring Twitter in class, as opposed to
making it optional (Junco, Elavsky, & Heibergert, 2013). His research team concluded that
large lecture classes should require Twitter use because his optional Twitter class section
had lower class engagement and learning scores than his required Twitter class section, as
measured by comparing student surveys and scores from each section.
In a related study, Pollard (2014) did not require Twitter use and found that the
majority of students in her history course of 370 students did not participate on the class
hashtag. Nevertheless, the majority of her students found Twitter in the classroom to be
somewhat valuable, with 18% reporting that it was incredibly useful. Her findings suggest
that the student behavior of lurking on the Twitter channel by observing without tweeting
to it could have at least some value, which might not be visible through a content analysis
of participation.
The Sense of Classroom Community
Students who believe their class has a strong sense of classroom community have
a sense of belonging to a class, believe that classmates care about one another, perceive
that all of the students have a mutual responsibility to one another, and experience shared
expectations about meeting common goals as students in the same class (Rovai & Lucking,
2000; Rovai, 2002). The sense of classroom community can make a difference to learning
(Rovai, 2002; Wighting, 2006).
We did not see any studies about Twitter’s contribution to the sense of classroom
community in the context of large lecture classes, so we thought this would be a partic-
ularly interesting area to explore. A study with some relevance to the role of Twitter in
enhancing a sense of classroom community in a large lecture class was C. M. Elvasky et
al.’s (2013) study. These researchers found that 81.1% of the 260 participants in their me-
dia and democracy class thought that in-class tweets made the class feel smaller and more
interconnected. In a tangentially related study about online discussion boards, which could
be similar to Twitter, 59% of 341 students believed that the required discussion boards
contributed to their sense of social connection with their peers in their large lecture course
(Stoerger & Kreiger, 2016).
Research Questions
As noted in the introduction, we could not find any in-depth qualitative studies
that involved hearing students’ perspectives about Twitter in a large lecture class. To ex-
plore how Twitter might affect students’ learning experience and the sense of classroom

community from their perspectives, we investigated the following research questions:
RQ 1: In what ways do students think the use of Twitter as a pedagogical tool in the
large college classroom affected their learning experience (if it had any effect)?
RQ 2: How do students think the use of Twitter as a pedagogical tool in the large lecture
classroom affected their sense of class community (if it had any impact)?
METHOD
Class Context and Professor Interaction
This study reports data from an entry-level course with 269 students that intro-
duced students to public relations, advertising, journalism, and communication studies. A
public relations professor taught the class and discussed the public relations angles of most
of the topics the class explored. A tweet was required during every class meeting that did
not have an exam. Students were required to use their real names in either their Twitter
handle or profile. An alternative option in this section for students choosing to not tweet
was to write a handwritten comment each time a tweet was required and submit it to their
assigned teaching assistant. The professor discussed the basics of Twitter and emphasized
the professional advantages of Twitter, as well as recommendations for using it in a profes-
sional context. The course ended at 5:20 p.m., and in the evenings of the class meetings,
the professor spent one to three hours reading, retweeting, and responding to tweets on the
course hashtag.
Despite a study’s recommendation to stop class lectures to have a designated pe-
riod for a Twitter interval (Cole et al., 2013), we chose initially to invite the class to tweet
at any point during the class due to several of our colleagues’ anecdotal experiences with
using this unrestrained Twitter approach. We received complaints from students about this
unrestrained Twitter approach, so after the first two weeks of tweeting throughout class, we
switched to designated Twitter intervals. During these intervals, the lecture stopped, and
students were instructed to take a moment to focus on writing a tweet based on a prompt
delivered in class, and they were reminded of the alternative of writing a reflection of sim-
ilar length. We encouraged students to take a moment to read each other’s tweets and con-
sider favoriting any they liked. They were then asked to put their phones away, although
the auditorium was so large that it was difficult to enforce this policy.
Sampling for Focus Groups and Participants
All students were invited to participate in a focus group in exchange for extra
credit. Due to the class size, we had planned to give all of the students who signed up
for a focus group spot extra credit, regardless of whether we ended up including them in
the focus groups; however, only 20 students registered for the focus groups. We recruited
another 10 students, three of whom did not show up. We believe that the low rate of vol-
unteering might have been due to the timing of the focus groups on a Saturday morning,
combined with a heavy homework time (with just two weeks remaining of class), and a
major competing campus event that attracted hundreds of students. The four focus groups
had a cumulative total of 27 students. We did not conduct additional focus groups because
we reached saturation with the data (see Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

We wanted to group similar people together, in line with the homogenous sam-
pling strategy for focus groups (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Patton, 1990). Consequently,
we organized the focus groups by the grades students were earning at the time of the course
(without revealing this information to the students). We used purposive sampling by send-
ing individual solicitations to people who stood out through their substantive tweets and
by identifying people who could fill in the spaces we had in the grade groups. Although
we tried to have 10 students per group, ultimately, we had a group of nine A students, plus
a C student who showed up to the wrong group; a group of eight B students; a group of
seven C students; and a group of three students in a combined D/F group. The focus group
participants had name cards in front of them to facilitate interaction, and cupcakes were
served. Regarding demographics, there were 11 Caucasian students (including 5 females
and 6 males); 10 Asian students (all females); 2 Hispanic students (both females); 2 Cauca-
sian-Middle Eastern students (1 male and 1 female); and 1 Caucasian-Asian male student.
Students ranged in age from 18-27. The median age was 20.
Focus Group Approach and Protocol
We used a semi-structured approach, which allowed for a naturally flowing con-
versation wherein students elaborated frequently on other students’ comments, which of-
ten helped to shape the conversation’s direction more than our focus group protocol [see
Appendix]. This semi-structured approach also gave us the opportunity to ask follow-up
questions on what the conversation’s natural unfolding revealed, giving us greater insight
(Krueger, 1988). By asking open-ended questions and allowing focus group conversations
to follow their own course, we believe we reduced the power difference with our students
(see Lindlof & Taylor, 2002; Madriz, 2000) and positioned participants as experts rather
than as subjects of a research study (Lee, 1993). Additionally, the focus group setting en-
abled participants to further explore their initial reactions to questions by interacting with
one another, thus enhancing the quality of the results (see Madriz, 2000). Each focus group
lasted an average of 54 minutes.
A potential drawback of the focus groups was that students might have felt in-
fluenced to say what they thought other students and the focus group moderator wanted
to hear. In each group, the focus group moderator was either the professor or one of the
graduate teaching fellows who had guest lectured a few times and worked with students
closely. In an attempt to offset these potential drawbacks, we reminded students that honest
feedback was of the utmost importance because the purpose of the focus groups was to
learn from them. We told students we wanted to learn about the educational value, or lack
thereof, with regard to incorporating Twitter into future curricula. In this way, we followed
Krueger’s (1988) guideline to tell focus groups what the researchers want to discover from
them. Furthermore, we told students that feedback from our previous classes had helped to
shape the present course, so this was a good opportunity to continue the goodwill toward
future classes by being honest and constructive. We responded in a supportive manner to
all opinions and welcomed all viewpoints throughout the discussions.
Data Analysis
We performed a thematic analysis on the transcripts by seeking common patterns

while noting the wide variety of responses we received (see Miles & Huberman, 1994).
We used our research questions as a lens for reducing the data; next, we coded the relevant
content by phrase, sentence, or paragraph, depending on the length of the relevant chunk
of text (see Miles & Huberman, 1994). We used emic codes (i.e., the participants’ phrases)
when possible and otherwise used etic codes (i.e., our words) when participants’ phrases
were too long or did not summarize the content (see Lindlof & Taylor, 2002).
RESULTS
RQ 1: In what ways do students think the use of Twitter as a pedagogical tool in the large
college classroom affected their learning experience (if it had any effect)?
Students commented on various advantages and disadvantages of Twitter as a tool
for their learning experience. Many students valued the ability to express various view-
points and learn from one another, although for some students, this marketplace of ideas
via Twitter was more idealistic than what had actually occurred. Furthermore, students
noted a major drawback of the potential for Twitter use in the college classroom to lead
them down a rabbit hole into the use of social media unrelated to class. In addition, some
students brought up that they disliked having their speech limited to the 140-character
tweet limit. Nevertheless, the same students recognized that having to do this developed
their skills. Details are included below.
Many participants agreed that the hashtag provided a place to share and learn
from multiple points of view:
This is why Twitter’s really cool—you can have your own opinion and at that
same time you can share what you think is correct without degrading that other
person’s opinion. It’s a very open way of making sure that everyone’s voice is
heard and to make sure that no voice is completely stamped out… no voice is
elevated to the highest pedestal. (Student from the A group)
Some students recognized Twitter’s potential for enabling a marketplace of ideas––fitting
their expectation of what college was meant to offer––while noting that it did not reach
this ideal:
The entire point of college … [is] to not be around like-minded people…. Twit-
ter… in a class college setting, embodies that in that you can see other people’s
opinions and, if you feel so inclined, you’re able to argue your point, and…ar-
guing in an academic sense is where the greatest ideas come from. …In its most
ideal sense, Twitter would lead to... an argument of conviction, but sometimes it’s
not that … most of the time, it’s not that. (Student from the A group)
Nevertheless, some students shared evidence of intellectual debate on the course hashtag.
For example, the class studied the circuit of culture in the context of the public relations
battle between the producers of the movie Ridiculous Six and Native American protestors.
A student who rarely talked in class noted, “A lot of people were saying, ‘It’s by Adam
Sandler. You shouldn’t take it seriously,’ and I was just one by one [tweet by tweet] knock-
ing out why representation is really important and it feels good [to recall that experience].”
When asked about student reactions to her tweets, she noted that she received some com-
ments and a lot of favorites “from people spectating the little showdowns.” Twitter gave

several students increased agency for expressing their views in class. A student from the D
group commented, “I feel like what’s cool about Twitter is if you do talk about these topics,
it’s a cool, more informal, more comfortable way of expressing my opinion.”
A downside of Twitter was the potential for distraction. The switch to Twitter in-
tervals (in which Twitter was only projected on the wall during designated Twitter periods
after the second week of class) helped some students with regard to the distracting aspects
of Twitter. “When we first started, I thought it was a really big distraction to have it on
the wall because people kept staring at that and not paying attention, but once you started
doing the intervals, it was good” (Student from the A group). A student from the B group
commented,
Twitter in the classroom…has its perks and its downfalls. I love seeing different
perspectives from other students, because obviously I don’t know what every-
one’s thinking, so seeing their thoughts is really interesting – some things I’d
never really thought about…. I guess lately the downfall is I get distracted. I start
to focus on the J201 hashtag, and I’m not really paying attention as much as I
could on the lecture.
For other students, even the use of Twitter intervals continued to be problematic: “It’s dis-
tracting because when I look on the phone, there’s so many other things on it, so it’s like
you just see that little edge… [of] another app; it’s like, ‘Ah, you want to touch it so bad’”
(Student from the C group).
Students brought up the issue of the 140-character limit with regard to the ed-
ucational value of Twitter: “I don’t understand why I would download something that
limits what I can say … I just never really saw the point” (Student from the A group). A
student from the B group noted, “I almost have to sacrifice what I think ‘cause it doesn’t
fit in the 140 characters, so that’s problematic. But it’s almost like a skill…something that
you learn how to do over time.” A student from the A group said, “Eventually, I realized
tweets are an easy way for me to make concise comparisons that were easy to remember.
So I began appreciating the tweets.” Thus, some students disliked the character limit while
acknowledging that learning how to fit their thoughts into a tweet had value. The results of
the qualitative study suggest that for many (but not all) students, Twitter helped students
exchange views and be exposed to different viewpoints. On the downside, many students
reported struggles with getting distracted on their phones after visiting the hashtag.
RQ 2: How do students think the use of Twitter as a pedagogical tool in the large lecture
classroom affected their sense of class community (if it had any impact)?
Twitter impacted most of the participants’ perceptions of the classroom commu-
nity; however, it did so in different ways. Although there were some students for whom
Twitter had no impact on the sense of community, for many others, it tended to increase
the sense of community while also infusing it with a spirit of competition. This spirit of
competition seemed focused on entertaining each other, to the detriment of the educational
value. Details are presented below.
For many students, Twitter increased the sense of community. One way that Twit-
ter increased the sense of community was by helping students bond through seeing one
another’s similar reactions. A student from the D group commented,

When we were talking about copyright issues and stuff recently, the whole time,
when she was going over the rules for it, and I had no idea about the rules for
copyright stuff before that, I was thinking like, ‘What?’, like, ‘copyright should
last forever.’And then I was just thinking that I was probably alone in that thought.
But then I saw that people had tweeted, ‘No, it should last forever.’And then I was
like, ‘Yeah, like, that’s what I think’ (laughs). Hearing the different views, when
it’s something that the teacher is supposed to be unbiased or chooses to be unbi-
ased about when she is providing information, it’s interesting, helpful, I think.
Twitter also increased the sense of community by helping the class know ad-
ditional student thought leaders who were reluctant to speak in a classroom auditorium
setting. It also gave thought leaders an online opportunity to continue their conversations
outside of the class lecture. For example, in the grade A focus group, there was a student
who stood out for passionately asserting her opinions frequently on Twitter; she was also a
compelling writer. Despite her large share of classroom voice on Twitter, she only spoke in
the classroom once and this was after significant encouragement by her professor toward
the end of the course: “Without Twitter, I wouldn’t feel welcome to participate. I wouldn’t
feel comfortable speaking and having you repeat what I’m saying over the microphone.”
Another thought leader in this woman’s focus group recognized her from Twitter: “[Lau-
ren] and I had never met but we communicate on Twitter a lot.” [Lauren] concurred: “We
talk so much on Twitter.” Finally, the sense of community was also enhanced by students
responding to each other’s questions pertaining to matters such as where to find an assign-
ment description.
For many participants, Twitter amplified the sense of competition in the class-
room community by producing pressure to come up with tweets that would “one-up” other
tweets or garner positive feedback through a favorited tweet. Students explained that these
tweets were designed primarily to entertain each other rather than enrich the education-
al experience. Students explained that projecting the Twitter feed on the classroom wall
contributed to the sense of competition: “Once you’ve broadcasted on the wall and people
see a physical reaction to what they’re saying, it stops becoming about learning. It starts
becoming about––how can I get the most laughs; how can I make sure I’m the coolest”
(Student from the A group). As another student from the A group recalled, “I see a meme
and I’m like, ‘Oh, I want to make a funnier one.’” Another student from the group added,
“I’m like, ‘I’m going to post something that’s going to knock it out of the park.’” The
tweets were related to the class content but arguably had more entertainment value than
educational value.
DISCUSSION
The growing prominence of social media in the lives of many of today’s college
students is challenging our values and norms surrounding education. Educators and schol-
ars are seeking to understand how to best adapt to the pace with which digital technologies
are advancing, blurring lines between education and entertainment, virtual and real, public
and private, affecting the way students feel, think, and relate, both inside and outside of the
classroom (Ito et al., 2009). Our study provides a needed contribution to the literature by
perhaps being the first qualitative study that involved an in-depth approach that achieved

qualitative saturation with regard to exploring students’stories and views with regard to the
integration of Twitter in a large lecture setting. As a qualitative study, the findings are not
generalizable; however, they can still provide insight in the context of one university class
involving the strategies we used.
The Sense of Classroom Community
Through our qualitative research, we found that a sense of community in the classroom
through Twitter might be influenced by the following variables:
• Helping students bond through seeing one another’s similar reactions;
• Helping students feel like they belong when their tweets are favorited or retweeted;
• Helping students develop relationships with one another by helping each other out
with basic questions about the course, such as the location of assignment instructions;
• Enabling the rise of additional class thought leaders who provided excellent content
using the course hashtag but felt reluctant to speak in a classroom auditorium setting;
and
• Fostering additional discussion on the course hashtag, as compared to the amount of
verbal discussion in the classroom.
These applications of Twitter to the sense of classroom community fit well with Rovai
and Lucking’s (2000) conceptualization of the concept, particularly with regard to feeling
a sense of belonging, feeling like members care for one another, perceptions of shared re-
sponsibilities to one another, and perceptions of shared learning goals.
Sense of Competition
A new theme we had not read about in the literature that surprised us was the
theme of competition on the course hashtag. Our qualitative data suggested that projecting
tweets on a classroom wall could increase a sense of competition among students, which
can devolve into attempts to entertain one another rather than share knowledge. Research
is needed to discover whether there are ways to productively harness this competition
toward educational goals (and if so, what those ways are) and whether a sense of compe-
tition among students should even be promoted, particularly with regard to how a sense
of competition might intrude on the sense of classroom community (as conceptualized by
Rovai & Lucking, 2000). Thus, this study introduces a question with regard to Elavsky et
al.’s (2011) finding that participation on the class hashtag jumped when the Twitter feed
was projected on the wall. Does the overall quality of the tweets change when the tweets
are projected, and if so, how? Initial insight from this study, based on students’ accounts,
suggests that projecting tweets might detract from the tweets’ intellectual rigor. There is a
temptation to send entertaining but educationally shallow tweets to create ripples of appre-
ciation throughout an auditorium.
Guidance for Tweets
In addition, this study goes further than the recommendation in the literature
about reminding students from time to time to keep their tweets relevant (e.g., Cole et al.,
2013; Pollard, 2014). Based on our study, we suggest that instructors (who choose to use
Twitter) provide significant guidance in helping students to understand the type of tweets

that add to the educational value of the hashtagged discussion and the types of tweets that
are not worthy of points.
The strategies of providing reminders to increase the intellectual quality of tweets
and rigorously grading the quality of tweets could be steps in the right direction. Anec-
dotally speaking, we used these strategies in a subsequent version of the class, and the
intellectual rigor of tweets from the students who tended to entertain rather than educate
eventually increased when they noticed that they were not receiving points for their vacu-
ous tweets and followed up with us to learn why. The quality of tweets also increased in a
subsequent class in which we did not award points for vanity tweets that merely expressed
enthusiasm for the professor or topic without adding value to the conversation.
We want to note that the rigorous grading strategy required much more time than
the simplistic grading strategy did due to emails and direct message tweets from many
individual students who asked questions about why they were not receiving points for
their tweets and how their tweets could improve (even though we had already addressed
these topics during the lecture). During the subsequent class, we also noticed that we had
additional opportunities to correct students on their understanding of the class content or
provide information to help students formulate better arguments, perhaps because there
was more intellectual content for our responses than there appeared to be earlier. Formal
research can explore these anecdotal insights with greater credibility than these casual ob-
servations can provide.
Frequency of Tweets
A clear recommendation from our research was that for most of our participants,
the invitation to tweet throughout class was too much of a distraction to justify this ap-
proach. With some vocal exceptions, there was a consensus in the focus groups that follow-
ing the hashtag, tweeting, and listening to a lecture was overwhelming and even stressful.
Thus, this research provides strong endorsement for designated Twitter intervals, as recom-
mended by Cole et al. (2013).
The Learning Experience
In addition, our qualitative data suggested ways in which Twitter both helps and
undermines the learning experience, which can be tested through future research. Students
who viewed Twitter as valuable for their education praised it as a platform for exposing
themselves to different views they had not considered. Some students recognized that hav-
ing to condense their thoughts into tweets was a good skill to develop, as exasperating as it
was to confine their speech.
The major way focus group participants saw Twitter undermining their learning
experience was its ability to distract them from class, particularly due to the temptation to
open other apps on their phones before tuning back in to the lecture. As we noted in the
literature review, several studies have concluded that Twitter has the potential to contribute
to students’ learning experience (e.g., Cole, Hibbert, & Kehoe, 2013; Junco, Heibergert,
& Loken, 2011; Kim et al., 2015); however, in another study, students emphasized the
distracting nature of Twitter and did not think it should be used in large lecture classes
(see Varadarajan, 2011). We believe that Varadajan’s differing results might be due to the

lack of using Twitter intervals based on the difference the intervals made to our students’
experiences.
CONCLUSION
Understanding the adoption of Twitter in the classroom from students’ perspec-
tives in an open-ended question format provided rich data from their perspectives. We
believe part of the value of this study lies in recommendations about how Twitter should
be integrated into the large lecture classroom with regard to frequency of tweets, guide-
lines for insisting on intellectual tweets (reinforced via scoring), and potential effects of
projecting tweets onto the classroom wall––for those instructors choosing to integrate it.
With these recommendations also comes caution about students’ temptation to continue
using their phones in classroom auditoriums following Twitter intervals for non-class ac-
tivity and the significant investment of instructor and teaching assistant time, at least with
the approach we took. As additional studies are conducted, we will continue to learn more
about the pedagogical use of this resource.
REFERENCES
Boyd, D. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in under-
graduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 3, 7.
Cole, M. L., Hibbert, D. B., & Kehoe, E. J. (2013). Students’ perceptions of using Twitter
to interact with the instructor during lectures for a large-enrollment chemistry
course. Journal of Chemical Education, 90, 671–672. doi:10.1021/ed3005825
D’Angelo, J. M., & Woosley, S. A. (2007). Technology in the classroom: Friend or foe?
Education, 127, 462–472.
Elavsky, C. M., Kumanyika, C.; & Mislan, C. (2011). Disrupting or developing discourse?
Twitter and the microprocesses of learning community in the media studies
classroom. Paper presented at the meeting of the International Communication
Association, Boston, MA. Retrieved from http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/
p491771_index.html
Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualita-
tive research. New York, NY: de Gruyter.
Ito, M., Antin, J., Finn, M., Law, A., Manion, A., Mitnick, S., ... & Horst, H. A. (2009).
Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new
media. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.
Junco, R., Elavsky, C. M., & Heibergert, G. (2013). Putting Twitter to the test: Assessing
outcomes for student collaboration, engagement and success. British Journal of
Educational Technology, 44, 273–287. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01284.x
Junco, R., Heibergert, G., & Loken, E. (2011). The effect of Twitter on college student
engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(2), 119–132.
doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00387.x
Kim, Y., Jeong, S., Ji, Y., Lee, S., Kwon, K. H., & Jeon, J. W. (2015). Smartphone response
system using Twitter to enable effective interaction and improve engagement in

large classrooms. IEEE Transactions on Education, 58, 98–103. doi:10.1109/
TE.2014.2329651
Krueger, R. A., & Casey, M. A. (2000). Focus groups: A practical guide for research (3rd
ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lee, R. M. (1993). Doing research on sensitive topics. London, England: Sage.
Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2002). Qualitative communication research methods (2nd
ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Madriz, E. (2000). Focus groups in feminist research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln
(Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.), pp. 835-850). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (2nd ed.). Newbury
Park, CA: Sage.
Perrin, A. (2015, October 8). Social media usage: 2005-2015. Retrieved from http://www.
pewinternet.org/2015/10/08/social-networking-usage-2005-2015/
Pollard, E. A. (2014). Tweeting on the backchannel of the jumbo-sized lecture hall: Max-
imizing collective learning in a world history survey. The History Teacher, 47,
329–354.
Porter Novelli. (2008). Intelligent dialogue: Millennials [White paper]. Retrieved from
http://www.porternovelli.com/intelligence/millennials
Rovai, A.P. (2002). Sense of community, perceived cognitive learning and persistence in
asynchronous learning networks. The Internet and Higher Education, 5, 319–332.
Rovai, A. P., & Lucking, R. A. (2000). Measuring sense of classroom community. Paper
presented at Learning 2000: Reassessing the Virtual University, Virginia Tech,
Roanoke, VA.
Stoerger, S., & Kreiger, D. (2016). Transforming a large-lecture course into an active, en-
gaging, and collaborative learning environment. Education for Information, 32,
11–26. doi:10.3233/EFI-150967
Tatone, J. (2016). Integrating contemplative learning into new media literacy: Heightening
self-awareness and critical consciousness for enriched relationships with new me-
dia ecologies (Master’s thesis). University of Oregon.
Tyma, A. (2011). Connecting with what is out there! Using Twitter in the large
lecture. Communication Teacher, 25(3), 175–181.
Válek, J., & Sládek, P. (2012). Immersed into digital world. Learning and students’percep-
tion. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 69, 1866–1870.
Varadarajan, R. (2011). Use of Twitter to encourage interaction in a multi-campus pharma-
cy management course. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 75(5),
1.
Wighting, M.J. (2006). Effects of computer use on high school students’ sense of commu-
nity. The Journal of Educational Research, 99, 371–379.

Appendix: Focus Group Protocol
IRB forms, name tags, demographic forms, and snacks. Check the recorder.
Why we’re doing this study:
• Help us in our teaching.
• Help other university professors who are considering tech options in large lecture
classes.
• Part of our job is research.
Ground rules:
• Try not to interrupt or talk over anyone.
• Different opinions are welcome.
• Please be completely honest with your feedback.
• Concrete examples and stories are especially helpful.
Questions (Note: for space considerations only the major questions were provided here.
Probes are not included)
1. How long ago did you join Twitter and why did you join it?
2. For those of you who used Twitter prior to J201, what were your experiences with
using Twitter?
3. What were your initial thoughts and feelings upon finding out that you would be
asked to tweet to a class hashtag during our class?
4. What was it like during the first couple of weeks when you were tweeting through-
out class?
5. How did you feel about having the live Twitter feed projected on the wall?
6. Can you describe the experience you had when you posted your first tweets to the
#UOJ201 hashtag?
7. What are your thoughts about when [Tiffany/I] shifted from having you tweet
throughout class to having designated intervals for tweeting during class?
8. What are your thoughts about the tweets on our class hashtag?
9. Can anyone talk about interacting with others on the hashtag and what that experi-
ence was like?
10. How do you decide what to tweet?
11. Can you describe the ways in which using Twitter as part of the large classroom
experience engaged, distracted or, in some other way, affected you?
12. Do you think cell phones should be used in large lecture classes? Why or why not?
13. Can you talk about your thoughts on the ideal college classroom experience in a
large lecture class – what student technology, if any, works best for you – including
not just Twitter but any social media and any classroom response technology, such
as Top Hat or the iClicker.
14. Time pending: Have you talked to others about your use of Twitter in the classroom
and, if so, in what ways did you describe the experience to them?
15. Time pending: What are some of the general thoughts and feelings you have toward
class use of Twitter and other social media, both in and out of the classroom?
16. Is there anything you would like to add?

I Love Tweeting in Class, But -- A Qualitative Study of Student Perceptions of the Impact of Twitter in Large Lecture Classes

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to I Love Tweeting in Class, But -- A Qualitative Study of Student Perceptions of the Impact of Twitter in Large Lecture Classes (20)

More from AEJMC Journal of Public Relations Education (JPRE) (10)

Recently uploaded (20)

I Love Tweeting in Class, But -- A Qualitative Study of Student Perceptions of the Impact of Twitter in Large Lecture Classes