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Facebook as an Informal Learning Space Channel: The São José, Macao, Cases Su Iong Kio Faculty of Psychology and Education University of Saint Joseph Macao, China [email protected] Joao Negreiros Faculty of Creative Industries University of Saint Joseph Macao, China [email protected] Abstract Broadly, on-line communication platforms are online resources that allow the exchange of information using the Internet. They include Email, Instant Messaging, Online Open Forums, Online Blogging and Social Networking Sites. All these platforms have their own specialties and properties. In education, there are great advantages for high-schools to utilize these online communication platforms, especially Online Open Forums and Social Networking Sites. Communication is the backbone of education. Everything from classroom teaching to school policy making depends on effective communication [1]. With these new communication platforms at hand, schools can develop more adaptable and friendly channels among students, teachers and management (only the first two interveners are covered under this study). Various components of the schools will essentially work together in a more collaborative and regenerative way [2]. This research paper analyses how online communication platforms are changing the internal nature of education. It takes sample populations from two schools in Macao (Pre-University of the University of Saint Joseph, USJ; and Colégio Diocesano de São José, CDSJ) with different backgrounds such as medium of language, level of degree, professor’s background and style of teaching. Teachers of these schools are communicated first for their opinion on key elements to improve learning with online communication platforms. These factors are implemented in a platform such as Social Networking Sites. As expected, students are instructed to utilize this platform (Facebook) to enhance their learning practice and experience. The result of this utilization is assessed in terms of student opinions and feedback. Keywords — Macao, incidental education, communication, social networking sites, Facebook. I. INTRODUCTION AND STATE-OF-THE-ART The Net changes everything [3]. This includes a new mass Internet media of news and entertainment channels, synchronous tools of video/audio teleconferencing, autonomous agents and database assisted learning. According to [4], in every 10 years comes a new twist: The 70's brought mainframes, the personal computer came on the 80’s, the 90’s created the WWW while the first decade of the XXI century ends up on the Web 2.0. Following the same line, the 2011- 2020 time-period will bring the Web 3.0. Along with [4], Web 1.0 was just for reading and sending e-mails. With Web 2.0, it gives the users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user- generated content (prosumer) in a virtual community (social- networking, blogs, wikis or video-sharing sites). Under this e- Learning context, WebCT © , Blackboard © and Moodle © already allow content creation, online file exchange and messaging system, multi-channel communication, whiteboards, on-line testing and grading book [5]. As well, several social media platforms had previously been used in lectures and course content such as the social bookmark delicious.com to organize unit resources links, twitter questions and comments during lectures or collaborative wiki posts in a closed e-learning environment. Yet, quite common, Facebook (FB) had been deliberately avoided, mainly due to its reputation as a social rather than a pedagogical platform [6]. Nevertheless, with its rapid development in recent years, FB is currently considered as the most popular platform for online social networking (online communication platform) among university students [7]. Confirming this view, FB has a core segment of 18-24 year-old college students and this segment is now the fastest growing, at 74% year on year [8]. For [9], FB people are motivated by two primary needs: the need to belong and the need for self-presentation. It appears that demographic and cultural factors contribute to the need to belong, whereas neuroticism, narcissism, shyness, self-esteem and self-worth contribute to the need for self-presentation. FB is used to keep in touch with old friends, to plan social events and making social links with others at university [10]. Yet and based on a data sample of 213 students of University of Leicester, England, when presented with the statement ‘Without Facebook I would be lonely’, only 3% of respondents strongly agreed, 16% agreed, 17% neither agreed nor disagreed, 35% disagreed and 29% strongly disagreed [10]. As one of the latest examples of communication technology that has been widely-adopted by students, FB has a potential to become a valuable resource to support their educational communication and collaboration with teachers. As said by [11] with a comparison of faculty and student responses, the authors indicate that students are much more likely than faculty members to use FB and are significantly more open to the possibility of using FB and similar technologies to support classroom work. Quite commonly, faculty members are more likely to use more traditional technologies such as email. 2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering 978-0-7695-4960-6/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE DOI 10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.17 70 2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering 978-0-7695-4960-6/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE DOI 10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.17 70

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Page 1: [IEEE 2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Enginering (LaTiCE) - Macau (2013.3.21-2013.3.24)] 2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering - Facebook as an Informal

Facebook as an Informal Learning Space Channel: The São José, Macao, Cases

Su Iong Kio Faculty of Psychology and Education

University of Saint Joseph Macao, China

[email protected]

Joao Negreiros Faculty of Creative Industries

University of Saint Joseph Macao, China

[email protected]

Abstract — Broadly, on-line communication platforms are online resources that allow the exchange of information using the Internet. They include Email, Instant Messaging, Online Open Forums, Online Blogging and Social Networking Sites. All these platforms have their own specialties and properties. In education, there are great advantages for high-schools to utilize these online communication platforms, especially Online Open Forums and Social Networking Sites. Communication is the backbone of education. Everything from classroom teaching to school policy making depends on effective communication [1]. With these new communication platforms at hand, schools can develop more adaptable and friendly channels among students, teachers and management (only the first two interveners are covered under this study). Various components of the schools will essentially work together in a more collaborative and regenerative way [2]. This research paper analyses how online communication platforms are changing the internal nature of education. It takes sample populations from two schools in Macao (Pre-University of the University of Saint Joseph, USJ; and Colégio Diocesano de São José, CDSJ) with different backgrounds such as medium of language, level of degree, professor’s background and style of teaching. Teachers of these schools are communicated first for their opinion on key elements to improve learning with online communication platforms. These factors are implemented in a platform such as Social Networking Sites. As expected, students are instructed to utilize this platform (Facebook) to enhance their learning practice and experience. The result of this utilization is assessed in terms of student opinions and feedback.

Keywords — Macao, incidental education, communication, social networking sites, Facebook.

I. INTRODUCTION AND STATE-OF-THE-ART The Net changes everything [3]. This includes a new mass

Internet media of news and entertainment channels, synchronous tools of video/audio teleconferencing, autonomous agents and database assisted learning. According to [4], in every 10 years comes a new twist: The 70's brought mainframes, the personal computer came on the 80’s, the 90’s created the WWW while the first decade of the XXI century ends up on the Web 2.0. Following the same line, the 2011-2020 time-period will bring the Web 3.0. Along with [4], Web 1.0 was just for reading and sending e-mails. With Web 2.0, it gives the users the free choice to interact or collaborate with

each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content (prosumer) in a virtual community (social-networking, blogs, wikis or video-sharing sites). Under this e-Learning context, WebCT©, Blackboard© and Moodle© already allow content creation, online file exchange and messaging system, multi-channel communication, whiteboards, on-line testing and grading book [5].

As well, several social media platforms had previously been used in lectures and course content such as the social bookmark delicious.com to organize unit resources links, twitter questions and comments during lectures or collaborative wiki posts in a closed e-learning environment. Yet, quite common, Facebook (FB) had been deliberately avoided, mainly due to its reputation as a social rather than a pedagogical platform [6].

Nevertheless, with its rapid development in recent years, FB is currently considered as the most popular platform for online social networking (online communication platform) among university students [7]. Confirming this view, FB has a core segment of 18-24 year-old college students and this segment is now the fastest growing, at 74% year on year [8]. For [9], FB people are motivated by two primary needs: the need to belong and the need for self-presentation. It appears that demographic and cultural factors contribute to the need to belong, whereas neuroticism, narcissism, shyness, self-esteem and self-worth contribute to the need for self-presentation. FB is used to keep in touch with old friends, to plan social events and making social links with others at university [10]. Yet and based on a data sample of 213 students of University of Leicester, England, when presented with the statement ‘Without Facebook I would be lonely’, only 3% of respondents strongly agreed, 16% agreed, 17% neither agreed nor disagreed, 35% disagreed and 29% strongly disagreed [10].

As one of the latest examples of communication technology that has been widely-adopted by students, FB has a potential to become a valuable resource to support their educational communication and collaboration with teachers. As said by [11] with a comparison of faculty and student responses, the authors indicate that students are much more likely than faculty members to use FB and are significantly more open to the possibility of using FB and similar technologies to support classroom work. Quite commonly, faculty members are more likely to use more traditional technologies such as email.

2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering

978-0-7695-4960-6/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.17

70

2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering

978-0-7695-4960-6/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.17

70

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Certainly, educators are interested in the effects of social media on students, particularly FB. Based on the studies of [12], for instance, their studies have examined the relationship between FB use and student engagement. By using a large sample (N=2368) of a USA college to examine the relationship between frequency of FB use, participation in FB activities and student engagement (this variable was measured in three ways: a 19-item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement, time spent preparing for class and time spent in co-curricular activities), results indicate that FB use was significantly negatively predictive in an engagement scale score and positively predictive of time spent in co-curricular activities. Additionally, according to [7], some FB activities were negatively related with three dependent variables: (A) students who spent more time on FB scored lower on an engagement scale, (B) there was no relationship between time spent on FB and time spent studying; (C) students who spent more time on FB spent more time in campus activities.

Yet, consistent with [13], “we found that Google Docs and FB were popular choices for the teams to communicate and share ideas and resources. There was a commendable contribution and involvement of the students in all course activities. The sharing of ideas and digital resources for teaching and learning motivated many of the students to try to use these tools in their own classrooms. Further, it was particularly pleasing to see experts spontaneously teach others who were interested in a particular tool”.

Reference [7] underwent an investigation if university students should consider FB as a useful and meaningful learning environment that could support, enhance and/or strengthen their learning of the English language. A survey was carried out with 300 undergraduate students at University of Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang. It was found that the students believed FB could be utilized as an online environment to facilitate the learning of English. Nevertheless, language instructors had to integrate FB as an educational project with pre-determined learning objectives and outcomes for the learning experience to be meaningful [7], leading the idea that FB must be modified somehow to fit pedagogical purposes. Confirmed by Mark Zuckerberg, founder of FB in 2004, “it was not because of the amount of money. For me and my colleagues, the most important thing is that we create an open information flow for people, mainly.” [14]

[6] gives some hints for this open FB Student issue based on their experience (for instance, all Blackboard announcements were replicated on FB, Email was reserved for formal matters of extreme importance and only sent on three or four occasions per semester, the page was open for student contributions with on-line behavior monitoring but leading to a more familiar, more porous and less formal setting than the walled community of a learning management system, students did not have to be friends with the lecturer or other students to access that content) in Queensland University, Australia. Their unit coordination team hoped to achieve two main goals: to improve the effectiveness of communications to the cohort (by having a more student-focused channel, it would enable teachers to better support students’ transitions to higher education) and to energize communications among the student cohort (by offering lecturer-to-student, student-to-lecturer and

student-to-student conversations in an extended and less formal setting than structured classroom discussions). According to these authors, there were strong correlations between page activity (student’s posts generation posts, reach and like of posts) and assessment due dates, suggesting students were actively engaging with the learning community at times of greatest need. Furthermore, as the semester progressed and students were more comfortable posting to the page group, they started to answer each other’s assessment related questions or post links to articles and content they found helpful. In spite of all this efforts, according to [15], FB has very little educational use. At present, students use FB mainly to keep in touch with known individuals and to disclose more personal information about them. [16, 21] shares this point of view by stating students think of FB for social reasons mainly, not for formal teaching purposes, although it can be used sometimes informally for learning purposes but not for doing the real work. Probably, FB should be considered a Social Networking Site (SNS) and not a formal teaching tool as Moodle is. Maybe there is perhaps merit in exploring the links and synergies between the two systems [16]. Still, some spillover effects could be found in this study such as 55% of their respondents had used FB to make new virtual friends prior to starting university [16]. Analogous to FB-Moodle complementary relationship, it appears that face-to-face friendships and on-line relationships co-exist together in a circle pattern for this digital generation.

Another youngster’s pattern was found by [17] in Romania with a sample of 300 students in a nine-month period: 62% log on FB between 18h-22h and 17% between 14h and 18h. Based on the Mann-Whitney U test, they assert that (A) there are no gender differences regarding the use of Facebook as an educational communication medium, (B) students prefer the English version (44,3%) and (C) 33,6% of them have a hard time imagining life without Facebook. It seems that the professor must be pulled out from its learning management system (LMS) to a personal area on-line experience on FB since students are more active here [17].

Another remarkable case reported by [18], not closely intimate with education but with communication capabilities, is the use of FB on the sharing of sources information and support by the University of Canterbury in New Zealand after a massive 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck that region on September 4, 2010.

Although research on the educational application of FB has been abundant at the university level, few studies have looked at FB utilization at the high school level, with age group of 15-18. Although not the majority of the FB user group, high school students in Macao are also frequent users of this social networking site. This research paper looks at this age group and utilizes FB as an educational tool to enhance its learning experience.

This writing is divided into four sections, including the present one. Section two summarizes some of the latest learning studies in Macao, China, under four vectors: education assessment, Web 2.0 tools, students personalities and learners types. Section three introduces and analyzes the results from the data sampling (questionnaires) of Saint Joseph’s Diocesan

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High School and Pre-University of Saint Joseph University. Logically, qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to the raw data, including t-tests and descriptive analysis. Last section draws the main conclusions by giving some hints for future research and further developments.

II. PREVIOUS EDUCATIONAL STUDIES OF MACAO Located in the heart of Macao, the Portuguese High-School

of Macao (EPM) is not an international school. Portuguese is its main language and it follows Portugal’s educational system. With a student population of four hundred and seventy, the school currently has more than ten non-Portuguese students from different countries such as the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Ukraine and the UK, but all of them have already picked up Portuguese as a communicating language with their classmates. As expected, the core students come from the Portuguese or Macanese local community. From [19], some stimulating conclusions could be drawn from their research at EPM when facing education, e-learning and Web 2.0 tools towards Felder and Solomon types of learners (Active/ Reflective, Sensing/Intuitive, Visual/Verbal, Sequential/ Global): (A) Lower grading students achieve the same or better overall results in the presence of Web based learning, no matter what kind of student style it is; (B) Proportionally, the grades of the Memory subsection are, in general, greater than the Reasoning one. Unexpectedly (or not), the grades in the Memory subsection preserve or decrease, in general, with the inclusion of virtual environments. In reverse, both classes strike improvements on the Reasoning subsection with Internet access resources; (C) It can be stated that there is a direct relationship of the partial grades between the Reasoning and the Memory sections for any type of scholars; (D) A meaningful improvement for Passive and Visual lowest grade students with e-Learning technologies; (E) Sequential learners receive a major positive impact of Web technologies, particular with the highest marks; (F) Global type students seem not to be quite sensitive to virtual classes.

In a further development study, [20] used the chi-square non-parametric test based on the alternative hypothesis (H1) as follows for the same population (students were classified under binary values according to their personality and learning profile, that is, the input data have been measured on a classificatory scale): There is a pattern correlation regarding the grade quizzes behavior between Myers-Briggs personality types and Felder-Solomon learning styles. Another way to state H1 is the increase/decrease of quiz grades for each personality type depends on the learning style used (see Table 1).

TABLE I. THE THREE SUBTLE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN LEARNERS AND PERSONALITY (EXTROVERSION/INTROVERSION, SENSING/INTUITION,

THINKING/FEELING, JUDGING/PERCEPTION) TYPES FOUND WITHIN THE SAME STUDENT DATASET WHEN FACING QUIZZES OUTCOMES [20].

Learners Types Personality Type Visual/Verbal & Sequential/Global

Intuition/Sensing

Visual/Verbal & Sequential/Global

Feeling/Thinking

Visual/Verbal Perceiving/Judging

If learning style and personality type (see Figure 1) play an important role independently on how a student learns, it gives the impression that particular learner types also present similar characteristics on particular learning styles when facing quiz achievements in a traditional classroom setting. It is this shift from one isolated classification method (learning style or personality style) to both (learning style and personality style) that may help when asking other research teaching questions in order to highlight human teaching and learning trends. According to [20], instead of asking if there is a difference in achievements between conventional classrooms and online ones (based only on Myers-Briggs personality types), a further possibility is to ask the same question but based on the dependent pattern types found previously due to the close association between personality types and learning styles for that particular dataset. Instead of asking what is the impact of student’s personality in quizzes, an advanced prospect is to enquire what is the impact of student’s personality on final outcomes but confined to specific learning styles that are closely related (Visual/Verbal and Perceiving/Judging, for instance). As expected, this means more effort for the researcher itself due to this new classification arrangement under both axes instead of one, a refinement scale issue [20]. That is, any researcher after asking the question to be evaluated, he/she must group his/her original data according to learning and personality styles together and not separately. This leaves the researcher to another open door on how to segment his/her raw data on the search of trends, outliers, sequences, consequences or patterns. Inevitable, each dataset will bring to light different internal subsets of behavior. However, due to their common features, quite probably, the inference certainty and conclusion for each question will be more plausible and understandable.

Figure 1. The cardinal points of the Index Learning Style of Felder and Solomon (left) and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (right).

III. PRESENT STUDIES OF EDUCATIONAL USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES IN MACAO AND ITS DATA ANALYSIS One of the online communication platforms, namely social

networking sites (FB in this case) has been utilized to apply to two schools in Macao: the Saint Joseph’s Diocesan High School (CDSJ) and the Pre-University of Saint Joseph University (USJ). CDSJ is a Catholic high school with almost 80 years of history. It is a typical high school in Macao with students from mostly working class families. It uses Chinese as the medium of instruction. USJ is a university in Macao but its Pre-University is for students preparing to enter university. The students there are essentially equivalent to the last year of high school. It uses English as the medium of instruction.

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One class from each school is selected to be the sample of this analysis. A FB group is setup for each of the classes (see a snap shot of the FB group in Figure 2). The FB group allows a group of people to share information and communicate just within the group. The teacher of each class is the administrator of the group. The students of the class will then join the group. The teacher will post information regarding lessons, homework, class activities or even personal feelings. The students can just observe that information or respond to it with their own opinion. Students may also post their own suggestions in the group. Other students may then respond to that, as well.

Figure 2. FB layout used for the present research.

A. Before setting up the FB group Before the FB group is set into action, a meeting with the

teachers is convened to go over the operation of the group and what the teachers think is most suitable to put in the group. It is agreed that teachers should let the conversation in the group be as free as possible but will intervene only if discussions get too heated. For example, when posts get too hostile on people, the teacher should stop that conversation. It is also agreed that discussion should avoid things regarding love and political relations. That kind of conversation should be kept in the students’ own personal FB accounts instead of in the FB group. The information in the group should be mostly class-related with occasional sidetracks such as jokes or riddles to ease tension, if there is any.

B. Running of the FB group The class size of each of the selected school is around thirty

students. The FB groups are operated for a time frame of eight weeks (September-October 2012). During this period, the teachers try to post at least one post per day. Initial feedback in terms of response is not quite active. The students mainly choose to observe and be a silent member of the group. As time progresses, more and more students join the discussion. Teachers sometimes post critical topics on purpose to generate attention. For example, teachers may write in the group that there is a pop quiz coming. Students will then get anxious and ask about topics covered in the quiz or the length of it. One of the teachers also opens the question of how to design the class uniform for the sports day. Suggestions and designs pour in the group and after a long discussion process, a final design is chosen with agreement from the whole class.

C. Results from the FB group At the end of the running period, students are surveyed on a

simple questionnaire to investigate their experience and view on the FB group. A full copy of the questionnaire is presented in the appendix section. There are three parts in the questionnaire: (I) background information, (II) opinion of the FB group and (III) suggestions on the FB group. Since the target sample of this research is high-school students, the length of the survey is kept short (around 10 minutes) so that the students will not lose focus as they try to finish the survey. The present authors and teachers feel that this is about the right amount of time for the students to reflect on some meaningful feedback.

The age group of the sampled students is from 15 to 18 years old. Male and female populations are about half and half. The students are already quite familiar with this social networking site and spend an average of two hours on FB every day. Numerical values are used on the learning experience and opinion the students have on using this FB group, the second part of the survey. On a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 being the least agreeable and 5 being the most agreeable), students choose a number to answer the survey questions. The mean and standard deviation of the answer to each question is listed in Table 2, along with the questions themselves.

TABLE II. MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION TO THE NUMERICAL PORTION OF THE SURVEY QUESTIONS

Does the Facebook Group mean standard

deviation 1. help on doing homework? 3.7 1.0 2. help on improving writing English? 3.0 1.0 3. help on learning? 3.4 0.8 4. help on your attitude toward learning? 3.0 0.9 5. help on getting class-related information? 4.2 0.8 6. help on expressing your opinion? 3.9 0.9 7. help on your relationship with your teacher? 3.7 0.9 8. help on the friendship with your classmates? 4.0 0.9 9. help on the unity of your class? 3.7 1.0 10. help you on posting more on Facebook? 2.9 1.1 11. help you on your skills on posting? 3.0 1.1

The first four questions regard students’ learning. The students generally think that their teachers put useful information about their homework on the FB group and that information does help on doing homework. They do not really think that the FB group is helping on their written English as a mean value of 3.0 indicates just an average result on question 2. As expect, specific students may still not get comfortable with using English to post on FB at CDSJ since the medium of instruction is Chinese there. A mean of 3.4 on question 3, the overall help on learning using the FB group, means students get more information from the group in addition to just getting help on homework. Teachers can do more with the group such as following up on lectures; giving out lecture material in the group and posting extra exercises as bonus points. Question 4

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deals with students’ attitude towards learning using the FB group as an alternative way of communication. Many students have the capability to learn but lack the motivation, a quite difficult variable to control. The FB group has not changed much in that aspect though as the mean value on question 4 is only average. This might have to do with the short running period of 8 weeks. Bad habits do not change easily.

The next five questions are closely related to inter-personal relationship and inter-class communication. This is the field that receives better result from this experiment. Students strongly agree that they get class-related information from the FB group. This includes class activities, time schedule and special notices, for instance. They also think that they are more comfortable of expressing their opinion using the group as indicated with a 3.9 mean value on question 6. They generally feel they are closer to their teachers and to their classmates. After all, that is expected since the whole purpose of the FB group is to generate more conversation and dialog among its members. Since the communication between members is promoted within the group, it is natural that group members know each other better and feel their relationship is closer than before. Finally, they think the group improves class unity with a mean value of 3.7.

The last two questions try to see if the FB group helps on the students’ FB usage and skill. Since most of the students are already frequent FB users, these results are quite close to near average.

D. Testing the data with Student’s t-test The analysis of the above section assumes that a mean

value larger than 3, on a scale of 1 to 5, in the numerical survey questions indicates an improvement with the help of the FB group. The data collected in each of these questions are run by a Student’s t-test to construct statistical validity to this claim.

The null hypothesis (H0) here is that, for a given question, the numerical data collected, have a mean value less than or equal to 3.0 indicating no improvement with the help of the FB group. The alternative hypothesis (H1) is that the mean value is larger than 3.0, indicating an improvement.

H0: sample mean � 3.0 (no improvement)

H1: sample mean > 3.0 (improvement)

The sample size (n) in this experiment is 50 students. Using a significance level α of 0.05 (5%), the rejecting t-score is 1.667. Thus, as long as the data collected for each question have a t-score bigger than 1.667, the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis of having an improvement is adopted. Table 3 lists all the t-scores and p-values of the numerical questions in the second part of the survey.

As seen from Table 3, the t-scores of question 2 and question 4 are less than 1.667, meaning the hypothesis of no improvement should not be rejected for both questions. As well, the t-score of the last two questions are less than 1.667 and, accordingly, the null hypothesis is also not rejected there. On the other hand, the t-score for the rest of the questions are all larger than 1.667 (the null hypothesis can be rejected) and, thus, there is an improvement in these remaining questions.

TABLE III. T-SCORES AND P-VALUES TO THE NUMERICAL PORTION OF THE SURVEY QUESTIONS

Does the Facebook Group T-score p-value

1. help on doing homework? 4.9 0.00 2. help on improving writing English? 0.0 0.50 3. help on learning? 3.9 0.00 4. help on your attitude toward learning? 0.3 0.38 5. help on getting class-related information? 10.4 0.00 6. help on expressing your opinion? 6.7 0.00 7. help on your relationship with your teacher? 5.0 0.00 8. help on the friendship with your classmates? 7.5 0.00 9. help on the unity of your class? 5.0 0.00 10. help you on posting more on Facebook? -0.5 0.69 11. help you on your skills on posting? 0.3 0.38

The amount of confidence to reject the null hypothesis is closely related to the significance level α value of 0.05. By definition, the type I error or error of first kind occurs when the null hypothesis (H0) is true but we reject it wrongly. With the present hypothesis setup, it means that there is a 5% probability that the null hypothesis should not be rejected but is actually rejected. Since the strength of the confidence level is mainly measured by α parameter, an α value of 0.01 could be used, leading to a rejecting t-score of 2.405. From Table 3, it is clear that even with an α value of 1%, those questions that have passed earlier for the 5% requirement will also pass this time for the 1% requirement, increasing the confidence that there is positive improvement on each question that passes. This result is also confirmed by the p-value of each of those passing questions. The probability of type I error (p-value) of those passing questions is 0.00 (up to 3 significant figures).

E. The open questions The last part of the survey asks students two direct

enquiries: what would they like the teachers to do more on the FB group and what do they think they should do more on the FB group. The replies to both open questions are quite sporadic. However, a few common suggestions can still be sorted out. Students suggest that they would like teachers to put more visual aide material in the group such as photos, videos and links. They also would like the teachers to disclose more on their personal life. This issue is more delicate as it touches on concerns of privacy, ethic and conduct. The teachers may have different level of comfort sharing their personal experience. However, there are findings that teacher’s self-disclosure may enhance student motivation if handled correctly [21]. Also, according to [10] and by stating the testimony of a 19-year old female law student, “Teaching someone is in itself an intimate thing, and so too should be the relationship between teacher and pupil.” Therefore, it is up to the teachers to decide if they want to disclose any private information and to what extent they would disclose it. The students also think that they should respond more on the FB group as they think that some of them are still not being active enough in the

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group. They think that more traffic in the group is the key to making it successful.

IV. CONCLUSIONS A FB group was setup in this experiment for sample

students from two schools in Macao to interact, converse and collaborate with their teachers and their classmates in addition to their classroom studies. The purpose of this experiment was to validate the idea that social networking sites (SNS), as an online communication platform, can be utilized to enhance studies (such as to collaborate on group projects, peer academic support, revision opportunities, content, lecture-time-change warnings, setting up debates or Q&A sessions) and inter-personal relationships among students and with the teacher himself.

An organized group setting such as the one used in this experiment allows the teachers to plan, advocate and lead constructive interaction within the group. That informal learning space of interaction propagates itself among the group members and stimulates input and outcome. That, in return, may translate to improvement in academic performance. At the same time, the interaction in the group can also bring group members closer to each other and with their teachers. The improved personal relationship may directly or indirectly enrich the students’ learning experience and eventually add to the students’ well-being.

There is also a clear potential for further complementary development with this undergoing study with issues and questions to be answered: The statistical quantification of the time spent on FB for social purposes in detriment of that available for academic study and its knowledge assessment impact over students; How keen are students to communicate with administrative personnel of the school by FB? Due to the different culture and language backgrounds of Macao people, are there any FB impact differences for dissimilar ethnicities? Compared to this high-school and pre-university students, does master and doctoral students of University of Saint Joseph, for example, react the same way to FB in a leaning context? Within a timeline frame, do students behave constantly on the same way when facing FB? Are previous conclusions valid for Guangdong, China, students? What should teachers and students post on these informal learning FB groups? These will all be subjects of subsequent research to fully evaluate the educational impact of FB in Macao.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The present authors would like to offer our sincerest gratitude to FDCT (The Science and Technology Development Fund) of Macao, China, for supporting this research through the project number 060/2010/A.

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Appendix: Survey Questionnaire for Facebook Group

Background information: 1. What is your age? 2. What is your gender? 3. How much time do you spend on Facebook every day? 4. How many posts do you usually post on Facebook every week? 5. How many response do you usually get from each post? Opinion on Facebook Group: (choose from 1 to 5 with 1 being the least and 5 being the most) : 1. Does the Facebook Group help on doing homework? 1 2 3 4 5 2. Does the Facebook Group help on improving writing English? 1 2 3 4 5 3. Does the Facebook Group help on learning? 1 2 3 4 5 4. Does the Facebook Group help on your attitude toward learning? 1 2 3 4 5 5. Does the Facebook Group help on getting class-related information? 1 2 3 4 5 6. Does the Facebook Group help on expressing your opinion? 1 2 3 4 5 7. Does the Facebook Group help on your relationship with your teacher? 1 2 3 4 5 8. Does the Facebook Group help on the friendship with your classmates? 1 2 3 4 5 9. Does the Facebook Group help on the unity of your class? 1 2 3 4 5 10. Does the Facebook Group help you on posting more? 1 2 3 4 5 11. Does the Facebook Group help you on your skills on posting? 1 2 3 4 5

Suggestions:

1. What do you want the teacher to post more on the Facebook Group?

2. What do you think the students should do more to make learning better on the Facebook Group?

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