Publications

This study provides experimental evidence that Twitter can be used as an educational tool to help engage students and to mobilize faculty into a more active and participatory role.

Using Facebook and texting while doing schoolwork were negatively associated with overall college GPA. Engaging in Facebook use or texting while trying to complete schoolwork may tax students’ capacity for cognitive processing and preclude deeper learning. Our research indicates that the type and purpose of ICT use matters in terms of the educational impacts of multitasking.

This study shows how types of social media use (particularly on Facebook) are related to poor outcomes such as lack of engagement which may lead to technology addiction.

The omnipresence of student-owned information and communication technologies (ICTs) in today’s college classrooms presents educational opportunities but can also create learning problems. Specifically, multitasking with these technologies can interfere with the learning process. Students reported frequently text messaging during class but reported multitasking with other ICTs to a lesser extent. Furthermore, only social technologies (Facebook and text messaging) were negatively related to GPA.

Time spent on Facebook was strongly and significantly negatively related to overall GPA, while only weakly related to time spent preparing for class. Furthermore, using Facebook for collecting and sharing information was positively predictive of the outcome variables while using Facebook for socializing was negatively predictive.

Although some research has shown a negative relation between Facebook use and academic performance, more recent research suggests that this relation is likely mitigated by multitasking. Time spent on Facebook was significantly negatively predictive of GPA for freshmen but not for other students. Multitasking with Facebook was significantly negatively predictive of GPA for freshmen, sophomores, and juniors but not for seniors. The results are discussed in relation to freshmen transition tasks and ideas for future research are provided.