AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

Often in education, the phrase “meet students where they are” is used as an approach to meet ever-changing needs of students. As the popularity of social networking increases, specifically among college students, the question arises: should colleges and universities utilize social networking sites (SNS) as a supplemental educational tool? This study explored this question by using survey items based on Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovation attributes to compare faculty and students’ current rate of adoption of using SNSs and their perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of using them as tools to enhance teaching and learning. The population consisted of School of Education faculty and students at a small, southern university. Quantitative data (from a Likert-scale survey) and qualitative data (from open-ended survey questions, a student focus group, and faculty interviews) revealed that less than half of faculty and most students are open to the notion of using SNSs for educational purposes. For faculty adopters, perceptions of the innovation-attribute constructs of compatibility, complexity, and observability were not significantly different from the perceptions of nonadopters, but relative advantage and trialability were significantly different between adopters and nonadopters. These results indicate that only the constructs of relative advantage and trialability, as described by Rogers (2003), helped determine faculty adoption decisions. For student adopter and nonadopter groups, results were not significantly different for perceptions of trialability, but they were different for perceptions of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, and observability. Thus, results indicate that all innovation attributes described by Rogers (2003) except trialability contributed to students’ adoption decisions. This study also discovered the faculty and students’ perceived benefits (i.e., communication and online discussion) and disadvantages (i.e., privacy, confidentiality, and distraction issues) of using SNSs in education. The study concluded that less than half of faculty’s and most students’ willingness to adopt SNSs for educational purposes is tempered by their concerns about privacy and confidentiality.