This paper also discusses a few research questions that theywant to solve. Question one. What effect does encouraging the use of Twitterfor educationally relevant purposes have on student engagement? What effectdoes encouraging the use of Twitter for educationally relevant purposes have onstudent engagement? To examine the effect of Twitter on student engagement, weused a mixed effects ANOVA model, with sections nested within treatment groups.The dependent variable was the difference score between the post-testadministration of the engagement instrument and the pre-test administration.Question two. What effect does encouraging the use of Twitter for educationallyrelevant purposes have on grades?And there are several results that they have comed up with,the analyses of difference scores show that there was a greater increase inengagement scores for the experimental group than the control group. From thisthey had concluded that using Twitter in educationally relevant ways had apositive effect on student engagement as measured by their instrument. Becausethey conducted analyses on difference scores, they took into accountpre-existing differences in engagement level.
Their analyses show that encouraging the use of Twitter foreducationally relevant purposes has a positive effect on grades. They alsofound out that no pre-existing differences between the groups on high schoolGPA, indicating that the groups were equivalent in terms of academic ability. Thisstudy provides the first piece of controlled experimental evidence that usingTwitter in educationally relevant ways can increase student engagement andimprove grades, and thus, that social media can be used as an educational toolto help students reach desired college outcomes.
There are several limitations to this research.The first and most important limitation is that the study was conducted on anarrow sample of the overall student population at an institution that is notnecessarily representative (with respect to racial, ethnic, and income factors)of all institutions in the United States, let alone internationally. Anotherlimitation is the engagement instrument.
It is important to note that wemeasured the construct of engagement through self-report and not actual studentengagement
