Twitter in higher education: increasing student engagement

ABSTRACT

Engagement is an essential factor in successful outcomes for students. Several studies have shown that the use of Twitter in the higher education classroom has the potential to increase student engagement. Student engagement increases students’ academic success, because they are interacting with the course content, peers and the course instructor on a higher level. In this time of a world-wide pandemic, more and more institutions of higher education are offering online courses. The following bullet points have implications for higher education teaching in that they demonstrate the positive aspects of using Twitter. The key findings of this manuscript include:

• There are statistically significant positive correlations between student engagement and their academic success.

• Twitter increases student engagement in the higher education classroom.

• Students who would normally not speak up in class are able to increase their engagement in class discussions, etc. through the use of Twitter.

• Twitter is a potential tool for overcoming student feelings of isolation due to a lack of communication intimacy and immediacy.

• Twitter provides another communication channel; provides a space to share assignments; and provides a medium where students actively engage with other, with the course content, and with the professor both in out of classroom.

KEYWORDS:

• Twitter
• higher education
• student engagement
• social media
• courses

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.