Twitter adoption, students perceptions, Big Five personality traits and learning outcome: Lessons learned from 3 case studies

TL;DR

This paper investigates how integrating Twitter into education affects student learning outcomes, personality traits, and attitudes through three case studies, revealing increased grades among participants and insights into personality influences.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on Twitter's role in education, highlighting the relationship between social media activity, personality traits, and learning outcomes in multiple case studies.

Findings

Twitter participation correlates with higher grades

Conscientiousness and Openness influence activity levels

No direct link between personality traits and grades

Abstract

This study presents the results of the introduction of Twitter in the educational process. It examines the relationship of the tool s use with the participants learning outcome through a series of well-organized activities. Three studies were conducted in the context of 2 academic courses. The participation in the Twitter activity was voluntarily for the students. In all 3 studies the students who participated in the process had a higher laboratory grade than the students who did not participated. Students Conscientiousness and Openness to experience were related to their activity in one study. However, no relationship between the students personality traits and their grade was unveiled. Moreover, the students interventions in the activities are examined as well as the variation in their attitudes towards social media use in learning. The implications of the conducted studies are discussed extensively and a comparison with other related studies is presented.