What do students think about SNSs in education? University students' perceptions, expectations and concerns regarding educational uses of SNSs

Abstract

Social network sites (SNSs) have become a popular technology in recent years and are currently used in educational environments. Although SNSs have attracted much scholarly attention, students' experiences with and expectations about SNS uses in education have not been deeply explored. This study investigates educational uses of SNSs by analysing university students' perceptions, experiences, expectations and concerns. A mixed method approach was used. The participants were 206 Turkish university students aged 18-28. As a quantitative data collection tool, Lim and Richardson's (2016) social networking use survey was employed. To better understand the students' perceptions, expectations and concerns about using SNSs for educational purposes, face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with 58 participants. The results of the study reveal that the students actively used SNSs for different purposes. The participants also exhibited positive perceptions of SNS use for educational purposes. Among the biggest expectations is that instructors would share materials using SNSs. When the students' general expectations were examined, notably different results were obtained. The greatest concern of the students was that their personal posts could be seen by their instructors.