Social media use for deaf and hard of hearing students in educational settings: a systematic review of literature

ABSTRACT

The pedagogical benefits of the social media may be most pronounced when they impact groups of learners who are at a disadvantage in conventional face-to-face contexts. Among such disadvantaged groups are the deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) students who may experience new opportunities with the help of the social media. This paper stems from the assumption that social media can play an important role in enhancing the learning experience for DHH students. The paper presents evidence around derived from a systematic review of the literature on the use of social media by DHH students in educational settings. A comprehensive search through multiple known databases identified a dataset of 172 papers from which 11 papers met the criteria for in-depth analysis. The analysis revealed that DHH students often reported a positive impact of social media on their learning in the form of increased interaction, learning motivation, as well as support and feedback. Students also reported challenges such as privacy, time management, inappropriate content, perceived isolation and parental resistance to adoption. Besides presenting the evidence found in literature, our analysis highlights that researching the effect of social media on DHH student learning remains an under-explored area of study.

KEYWORDS:

• Deaf education
• DHH students
• social media
• online learning
• systematic review
• hard of hearing
• educational technology
• special education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ehsan Toofaninejad is a PhD candidate in Educational Technology at the Allameh Tabataba’i University and a visiting scholar at the Teaching Innovation Unit, University of South Australia. His research interests include blended learning, learning in social media contexts, digital pedagogy and special education and technology. His current research addresses investigating the effect of social network sites on learning and social skills of DHH students.

Dr. Esmaeil Zaraii Zavaraki is the head of educational technology department at the Allameh Tabataba’i University and the head of educational sciences department at the Azad University Electronic Campus. He is the author of 85 published papers in national and international journals and conferences and the author of 5 books and translator of 8 books from the English language to the Persian that are reference sources in Iran. He has also supervised 144 Masters and 8 Doctoral theses in areas of educational technology and special education. Dr. Zaraii’s research interests include technology integration in special education, special education with emphases on educational technology and assistive technology, hypermedia in special education, designing E-learning environments for people with special educational needs.

Dr. Shane Dawson is the Director of the Teaching Innovation Unit and Professor of Learning Analytics at the University of South Australia. His research focuses on the use of social network analysis and learner ICT interaction data to inform and benchmark teaching and learning quality. Professor Dawson is also a founding executive member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research, past program and conference chair of the International Learning Analytics and Knowledge conference and the inaugural co-editor for the Journal of Learning Analytics.

Dr. Oleksandra Poquet is a research fellow at the Teaching Innovation Unit, University of South Australia. Oleksandra’s interests span across learning analytics, social processes in networked learning environments and network science. Her current research focuses on the relationship between learning tasks and social learning, as well as evidence-informed teaching practices.

Parviz Sharifi Daramadi is the professor of the department of psychology and education at the Allameh Tabataba’i University. He has authored and co-authored numerous articles and books on special education.

ORCID

Ehsan Toofaninejad http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6440-0992

Esmaeil Zaraii Zavaraki http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3584-4118

Shane Dawson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2435-2193

Oleksandra Poquet http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9782-816X