Review Article
Abdullah S. Alshalawi
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 14, Issue 4, Article No: ep378
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the current study is to provide a synthesis review of previous social media networks studies and to elaborate on the influence of social media networks on learning performance. The study analyzed 130 articles on social media networks that were published by five major journals in the field of educational technology in the last decade. It summarizes demographic, methodological, and theoretical trends, including educational level, learning domain, country context, research methods, data collection tools, data analysis techniques, and research purpose, followed by a summary of the influence of social media networks on student learning performance and students’ perceptions toward the use of social media networks in learning. The findings show that more than two thirds of the reviewed articles studies were conducted in higher education institutes, college students were the most common participants in these studies, and most of the learning performance focus articles reported a positive influence of social media networks on learning performance. Students recognize and value the learning benefits of social media networks on the majority of the reviewed articles. Patterns in these articles are discussed in order to better understand the research and identify gaps that need to be filled by future studies.
Keywords: social media networks, learning performance, teaching/learning strategies, mobile learning, literature review
Research Article
Serkan Sendag, Osman Erol, Sezan Sezgin, Nihal Dulkadir
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 6, Issue 3, pp. 172-187
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between preservice teachers’ Web 2.0 competencies and their critical thinking disposition (CTD). The study employed an associational research design using California Critical Thinking Disposition-Inventory (CCTD –I) and a Web 2.0 competency questionnaire including items related to Web 2.0 awareness, Web 2.0 use, and educational use of Web 2.0 tools. Five different Web 2.0 tools included in the study: (a) blogs, (b) wikis, (c) social networking websites, (d) YouTube, (e) podcasts. A total of 1335 preservice teachers completed the survey. Findings indicated that participants had a medium level internet use, Web 2.0 awareness, Web 2.0 use and Web 2.0 skills while their educational Web 2.0 use level was low. In terms of competencies on certain Web 2.0 tools, their blog, wiki and podcast competencies were at a very low level, whereas their social networking and YouTube competency levels were high. Findings also showed that there were significant relationships between preservice teachers' Web 2.0 competencies and their critical thinking disposition. The results highlighted that the use of different Web 2.0 tools can be complementary to each other during certain instructional activities to improve different dimensions of critical thinking disposition.
Keywords: Critical thinking, Higher order cognitive skills, Teaching-learning strategies, Web 2.0 awareness, Web 2.0 competencies, Preservice teacher education
Research Article
Ali Simsek, Jale Balaban
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 36-45
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to assess the most commonly used learning strategies of undergraduate students and how these strategies were related to their academic performance. Toward this purpose, a 60 item Likert scale was administered to a sample of 278 undergraduate students. The students were selected based on their cumulative grand-point-average as the most successful and the least successful five senior-year students from each majoring area in the faculties of arts, engineering, science, communication, and sports. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was 0,93. Results showed that successful students used more, varied, and better learning strategies than unsuccessful students. Female students were more effective in selecting and using appropriate strategies than male students. There were a variety of differences among fields of study; students of fine arts used the strategies least, while students of sports used them the most. The most preferred group of strategies was metacognitive strategies, whereas the least preferred group was organization strategies. The same pattern was found for the level of success, gender, and field of study. The results overall imply that certain strategies contribute to student performance more than other strategies, and majority of university students are aware of this situation.
Keywords: Cognitive strategies, Higher education, Learning strategies, University students