The Use of Twitter in Large Lecture Courses: Do the Students See a Benefit?

The purpose of this two-year quantitative study was to determine the usefulness of the
micro-blogging tool Twitter in large classes for improving the students’ sense of community
and belonging. Three instructors of large classes were recruited to test the outcomes of using
Twitter as a learning tool, one each from the Departments of Geography and Psychology, and
the College of Nursing. Twitter was used as a learning tool to allow students to engage in
discussion and ask questions in real time during class as well as outside of class. The method
used by the authors included surveys that measured students’ perception of their sense of
community and belonging, their engagement with the Twitter portion of the course, and their
thoughts on the use of Twitter for academic purposes in a higher-education classroom
setting. Data about students’ use of Twitter was further collected using the Twitter Archiving
Google Spreadsheet tool. The authors conclude this study showed that Twitter, if integrated
into the course and supported by instructor and/or assistants who are familiar with the use of
Twitter, improved the sense of community reported by students.