Have social media made their way in classrooms? a study at three European universities

ABSTRACT

This study examines how college students perceive social media as a mean for learning and teaching and whether its use is associated with different variables that reflect both student and teacher performance, more specifically student attention, perceived trustworthiness of teacher and teacher–student rapport. The empirical study was conducted in three European countries at the beginning of 2017. A cross-national perspective was adopted to observe whether there are differences in students’ evaluations according to their national backgrounds. Results reveal a low usage of social media for academic purposes among students and teachers and a poor perceived usefulness of social media as a mean for learning, with differences obtained across the three examined samples. In addition, insignificant or weak relationships are found between social media use and student attention on one hand and perceived teacher trustworthiness on the other, despite the national culture of the respondents. A positive relationship is observed between social media and teacher–student rapport and this relationship is found to be moderated by national culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• attention
• trustworthiness
• teacher–student rapport
• national culture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Maja Šerić is a professor at the University of Valencia in Spain. Her investigation is focused on communication, new technologies and cross-cultural research. Her papers have been published in several leading journals, such as Journal of Marketing Communications, European Journal of Marketing, Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, International Journal of Tourism Research, Current Issues in Tourism and so on.