TITLE: Facebook as a Teaching Enhancement Tool to Facilitate College Student Learning: A Case Study
KEYWORDS: Facebook, social network, evaluation criteria, academic achievement
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between Facebook Group participation and the academic achievement of college students in Taiwan. The ten-week educational discussions among fifty Taiwanese college students on two Facebook discussion pages were recorded and analysed. The online participation frequency of each student was then subsequently compared to his Grade Point Average. The result indicates that there is a significant positive correlation between a student's online participation frequency and his GPA. Furthermore, it was found that evaluation criteria and teacher facilitation can have an effect on the direction of online discussions. According to the results, we can conclude that educational discussions on Facebook may enhance student learning, and hence Facebook may serve as a promising teaching tool to be used by educators.
