Cultivating a Sense of Belonging: Using Twitter to Establish a Community in an Introductory Technical Communication Classroom

ABSTRACT

The introductory technical communication class serves many purposes, but perhaps an understudied purpose is the class’s role in university retention and persistence. In this study, students used Twitter to complete biweekly assignments as a way to develop a sense of belonging, which is an important component to retention and persistence. Authors explore how this Twitter intervention affected students’ sense of belonging, their creation of an online community, and their continued pursuit of a technical communication education.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom community
• community building
• social media
• tech comm pedagogy
• Twitter

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erin Friess

Erin Friess is an associate professor in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA. She studies programmatic professional and technical communication issues, workplace communication, and technical communication discipline progression.

Chris Lam

Chris Lam is an associate professor in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA. He studies communication in team projects, examines research in professional and technical communication and its impact on the profession, and applies data from social media to practical and pedagogical issues in technical and professional communication.