Teacher Tweets Improve Achievement for Eighth Grade Science Students

• Main Authors: Carol Van Vooren, Corey Bess
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Institute of Informatics and Cybernetics 2013-02-01
• Series: Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics
• Subjects: Educational Technology; Twitter; Communication; Academic Achievement; Social Networking
• Online Access: http://www.iiisci.org/Journal/CV$/sci/pdfs/HHB348DV.pdf

In the Digital Age teachers have fallen far behind the technical skills of their "digital native" students. The implementation of technology as a tool for classroom communication is foreign for most teachers, but highly preferred by students. While teenagers are using Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks to communicate, teachers continue to respond through face-to-face conversations, telephone calls, and email messaging. Twitter, a platform for short message service text, is an online social network site that allows users to send and receive messages using 140 characters or less called Tweets. To analyze the relationship of the teacher's use of Twitter with student academic achievement, a correlation study conducted by Bess collected data from two matched samples of eighth grade science students: one utilizing Twitter and one not utilizing Twitter to reinforce classroom instruction. Two tests matching the science standards were given to both samples of students. The results of the tests were used as primary data. The findings suggested a positive correlation between the use of Twitter and student performance on the standardized tests. Implications for this study indicate that young teenagers may prefer Twitter as a mode of communication with their teacher, resulting in higher academic achievement in a middle school science class.