Students’ Motivations for Social Media Enhanced Studying and Learning

Abstract

Solutions of social media enhanced learning are widely studied in Hypermedia Laboratory at Tampere University of Technology (TUT). In recent years Web 2.0 based social media services (e.g., Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Last.fm®, etc.) have become popular, especially among young people. Based on this phenomenon TUT Hypermedia researchers have developed a social networking site for TUT freshmen aiming to provide convenient tools for interaction and study support. The first idea was to offer a free-of-charge social web site in the context of learning Basic Engineering Mathematics at TUT. This was thought to be an efficient tool to get new students studies off to a good start as mathematics courses play a significant role. However, the prediction failed, which caused us to study students‟ motivations for social network site usage in the study context. This paper describes research conducted in 2009. Moreover, a description of subsequent measures accomplished (e.g., web site development and social network analysis) at TUT is included.

Keywords

• social media services
• motivations
• study support
• e-learning
• mathematics