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The use of social media for final year undergraduate project supervision

Article in World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education · January 2017

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World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education  2017 WIETE
Vol.15, No.3, 2017

The use of social media for final year undergraduate project supervision
Shaidah Jusoh & Hejab M. Al Fawareh
Northern Border University
Rafha, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to investigate students’ and faculty members’ perspectives towards the use of
on-line tools for supporting final year undergraduate project supervision. The study involved 43 students and 10 faculty
members (project supervisors). Data were collected via a questionnaire and structured interviews. Findings indicated
that both students and supervisors prefer to use social media more than learning management systems. WhatsApp was
opted for as the best among the social media apps. The main reason for this option is because the app is already
available on smartphones, and checking the app has been a part of their daily life. A messaging facility is the top facility
of usage. All participants log onto their social media accounts almost every hour, while the majority of them log onto
LMS when necessary. Exploring research ideas is the main supervision activity that can be done through the app.
However, on-line supervision is not a great means for supervising students in project development. Supervisors also
agree that students’ self-reliance can be assessed through on-line supervision.

INTRODUCTION

The Internet and mobile computing have become the greatest innovations in this era. Whoever we are, and whatever we
do, we all use the Internet almost every hour. The invention of the smartphone has dramatically changed people’s life
around the globe. A smartphone is a mini computer, and it can be kept in a trouser pocket. Smartphones have been used
to replace desktop or mobile computers. Any activities, which can be performed on desktop or mobile computers, such
as information retrieval, sending and receiving emails, browsing and shopping, can also be done easily and freely
through smartphones.

Furthermore, the invention of social media technology has made the use of smartphones more intriguing and exciting.
The social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and many more are available freely
and can be installed any time on any type of smartphone. These apps are usually classified by social interaction, content
sharing and collective intelligence.

The use of social media in society has been studied by many researchers. The studies have been conducted on many
issues and aspects, including how a non-profit organisation community makes use of social media [1], the effects of
social media on mental health [2], the use of social media in medical situations [3], the implication of social media on
health communication [4], the use of social media for political engagement [5] and the use of social media for building
up relationships [6]. There is also a growing trend for using social media technology to enhance or supplement
the traditional university teaching and learning. Social media technology can offer new ways of teaching and learning
by encouraging communication and collaboration between students and instructors.

In education, social media can be used to share information with students, collect information, conduct research, share
personal academic interests with other people, engage students beyond the classroom, and enhance e-textbook functions
by connecting students with social tools for collaborative purposes [6]. Studies also show that using social media can
help achieve learning outcomes [7]. The social media not only allow students to develop relationships through
management and feedback from the instructors, but also expose students to multiple forms of literacy, interpretation,
critique, creativity and expanded audience [8]. Instructors can leverage social networking platforms to provide
additional times and places for increased communication, collaboration and participation. Research conducted by Lau at
al, identified that social media also develop students’ capacity to create and arouse their interests in academic subjects
and students more easily communicate with working professionals through social media [9]. Social media foster
communication among teachers, students, parents and community members, and help create on-line professional
learning communities [10].

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According to the latest Google study, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one the countries with the highest level of
penetration of smartphones and social media technologies. In addition, research conducted by at a Saudi university had
identified that nearly all Saudi students own a smartphone [11].

The purpose of this study was to identify the perspectives of students and supervisors towards the use of social media
apps for teaching and learning in the final year undergraduate project.

RESEARCH AND METHOD

The authors used a questionnaire and structured interviews to collect data from students who enrolled for the final year
projects, and faculty members who were responsible for supervising the projects of students majoring in computer
science, information technology or information systems at the Northern Border University (NBU), Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia. A total of 43 students and 10 faculty members volunteered to participate in this study. At the NBU, students are
expected to complete their final year projects in two semesters. In the first semester, students are required to prepare
a complete proposal, consisting of three main chapters; introduction, literature survey and system analysis, and design
(Project 1).

In the second semester, students must implement the system using a specified programming language and discuss
results of the project (Project 2). Project supervisors are normally selected based on expertise and interests.
Students who enrol for the final year projects are automatically registered as users of the University’s learning
management system Blackboard. Supervisors are encouraged to use Blackboard in supervising and managing their
students. However, LMSs, such as Blackboard or Moodle have fewer opportunities for users to build an on-line social
presence [12].

Besides Blackboard, supervisors are free to use any on-line tool to serve the same purpose. Thus, with the popularity of
smartphones and social media, the authors would like to determine the perspective and practice of students and faculty
members towards using a social media technology for on-line supervision. This study is guided by the following seven
research questions:

RQ1: What is the best choice of on-line tools?

RQ2: What is the best social media application for supervising and managing final year projects?
RQ3: How often do students and supervisors log onto LMS and social media accounts?
RQ4: What type of supervision activities can be achieved through on-line supervision?
RQ5: What is the most useful on-line application facility in on-line supervision?
RQ6: Can social media be a means to support deep learning?
RQ7: What type of assessment can be done through on-line supervision?

DATA ANALYSIS

Investigation into the demographic variables indicated that out of the 43 student respondents, 65% were female, while
the remaining 35% were male. In terms of the number of supervisors, 50% out of 10 supervisors were male.
Each faculty member can supervise only one group project. Each group consists of three to five students.
Table 1 shows the gender distribution of students and supervisors of the survey participants. The NBU is one of the
universities, which apply gender desegregation, where male supervisors can supervise male and female students, and
female supervisors only supervise female students. There is no gender mix in student groups.

Table 1: Genders of supervisors and students.

Male Female
Supervisors 5 5
Students 15 28

To answer RQ1, students and supervisors were asked to make a choice between learning management systems
(Blackboard) and social media apps for managing and supervising the final year projects. All students and supervisors
had selected the social media. Based on the choice, students and supervisors were asked to choose the best social media
app to serve the purpose (RQ2).

Among the listed options were Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram. Data analysis reveals that all
participants had chosen WhatsApp as the option of choice. To determine the reasons behind the choice of the options,
participants were asked to select a list of options as shown in Table 2. The highest score for choosing social media is the
app already available on their smartphones, followed by the activity of checking social media that has been a part of
their life, and the least score is having a feeling of personal touch with the group members.

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 Table 2: Reasons for choosing the social media app.

Frequency of response
Social media app is already installed on my smartphone 100%
Checking social media, a part of my daily activities 95%
Social media is available on my smartphone 97%
Social media app has a notification facility 90%
I can express my feelings through emoji 85%
It is fun and easy to use social media app 87%
I feel I have a personal touch with my group members on on-line social networks 10%

Interestingly, all participants log onto their social media account almost every hour, while the majority of the
participants log onto LMS when necessary (RQ3). Figure 1 illustrates the frequency of accessing the social media and
LMS. This finding supports the finding of RQ1 and RQ2.

60
40 LMS
20 Social media
0
Almost every Almost every Once in a week When
hour day necessary

Figure 1: The frequency of accessing on-line applications.

To answer RQ4, participants were asked to make multiple selections of supervision activities which can be achieved
through on-line supervision. Data analysis reveals all participants believed that exploring research ideas can be done
through on-line supervision. However, the development activity had the lowest score. In the development stage,
students are supposed to write, execute and run a programming code. Thus, this finding suggests that development
activity requires off-line supervision as students may need to sit down with their supervisor to detect the faults in the
code.

Table 3: Supervision activities which can be achieved through an on-line application.

Frequency percentage of
Supervision activities
response
Exploration (exploring research ideas) 100%
Formalisation (formalising research idea into a project plan 93%
Preparation (collecting relevant information for the project) 70%
Development (implementing the project using specified programming language) 35%
Reporting (preparing a final project report) 70%
Presentation preparation (preparing for the final project presentation) 70%

To explore which facility of on-line apps was the most useful for the purpose of teaching and learning (RQ5),
participants were asked to make multiple selections of apps’ facilities, of these they used often. Figure 2 shows that
messaging is the most useful facility for teaching and learning, and the sending video facility was the least used.

60 53

40 35
30

20 15
10

0
Messaging Sending file Sending audio Sending photo Sending video

Figure 2: The usage of on-line application facilities.

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According to Biggs, peer interaction is considered to be one of the key elements of course design that supports deep
learning [13]. Thus, one wants to capture the students’ perceptions about using social media as a means for peer
interaction (RQ6). The percentage responses of students for the four questions is shown in Table 4. The feedback was
highly positive for the first three of four questions, indicating that social media can be used as a means to achieve deep
learning.

Table 4: Perceptions of students (n = 40).

Questions Percentage of response

Yes No Undecided
The social media offer me a way for more interaction with my peers 100 0 0
The social media allow me to learn from my peers 24/7 and more fun 100 0 0
I feel free to discuss and collaborate on my ideas 90 5 5
I interact with my peer on-line more than off-line 85 5 10

Supervisors were asked about the type of self-reliance assessments that could be done through on-line supervision
(RQ 7). A list of options was given to the supervisors and they were asked to use a 5-point Likert scale from strongly
disagree, to strongly agree. The options include assessment of own skills and strengths and weaknesses, seeking help
on time (addressing the right experts with adequate questions), proper use of the support of his supervisor (and other
resources), defence of own opinion, communication, creativity, team player, work schedule made, determination of
own activities, own monitoring of progress, own evaluation, and adjustment and coping with criticism. Figure 4
illustrates supervisors’ opinions about self-reliance assessments. Data analysis shows that a few of self-reliance
assessments can be fully achieved through on-line activities, such as team work, determination of own activities and
own monitoring of progress.

Figure 4. Types of self-reliance assessments.

CONCLUSIONS

Completing a final year undergraduate project is one of the requirements for graduation. This subject requires students
to be more creative, independent thinking and to work in teams. Interaction among team members and the project
supervisor is vital. The findings of this study reveal that checking social media has been a part of students’ and faculty
members’ daily life, and they log onto to their social media accounts almost every hour. This finding is statistically
significant compared with the finding that students and project supervisors chose a social media app, rather than LMS
as a tool for communication and interaction during the supervision process.

Nearly all supervision activities can be done through social media apps. The feedback from the survey indicated that
students and supervisors normally used the messaging facility to interact between themselves. Consequently, social
media can be a means of achieving deep learning.

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