Abstract
Social
networking sites are one of the latest examples of communication technologies
that have been widely adopted by students. The primary objective of conducting
this study was to contribute to understanding of how university students use
social media. We focused more on YouTube, as one of the popular social
networking websites, and graduate students, as representatives of university
students who are more frequently involved in academic activities. A survey,
including twenty five questions, was developed to address key questions in
terms of using different types of social media, including the purpose of using YouTube,
students’ attitudes towards the impact of social media on academic performance,
and gender and nationality differences. Surveys were filled out by 152 students
at a university in west Texas. We found that graduate students were more likely
than other students to use YouTube for learning purposes. A major take-home
message for educators is that social media have the potential to become a
valuable resource to support their educational communications, and they will
benefit from integrating social media, such as YouTube, into university
courses.
Introduction
Social
media are escalating at a rapid rate, impacting all
aspects of our life. In fact, it might be difficult to
imagine a world without using some sort of social media such as Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram. The ways we learn, teach, make friends, do
shopping, and interact with each other are affected significantly by social
media sites. The common feature of all these media is facilitating social
networking. “Social networks are defined as a body of applications that augment
group interaction and shared spaces for collaboration, social connections, and
aggregates information exchanges in a web-based environment” (Mazman & Usluel, 2011, p. 133). As Stutzman (2006) states, social
networks can be used for “passing time, learning about other people,
maintaining social relations, or following changes at the university, class or
school enrolled” (as cited in Mazman & Usluel,
2011, p. 134). Advantages and
disadvantages of this widespread use of social media are discussed in the
literature. Enhancing communication, social connection, and technical skills is
demonstrated to be the major benefit of using social networking websites for
younger users (Ito et al., 2008). On the other hand, deteriorating
face-to-face communication skills, facilitating laziness, reducing family
closeness, and creating a skewed self-image are some of the discussed
disadvantages of using social media for young users (Price-Mitchell, 2014). Comparisons of different social
media in terms of their features, number of users, and users’ demographics and
purposes remain as one of the most popular research areas. An example is a
study by Princeton Survey Research Associates International in 2013, which
showed that 42% of online adults in the US use multiple social networking
sites, and Facebook is the dominant social networking platform among them (Duggan & Smith, 2013).
Among
different types of social media, some of us chose to focus on YouTube because
it is the most popular online video website (Trier, 2007). YouTube is a video sharing site
founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. It was first introduced in
2005 and purchased by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion (Christensen, 2007). Users of YouTube are able to
upload, view, and share video clips for free. Video feeds of YouTube videos can
also be embedded on other websites. These capabilities have made it a very
interesting media especially for youth. They use it for a variety of purposes
including pure entertainment, sharing family videos, posting work
demonstrations, advertising a company or product, and providing access to
educational resources (Terantino, 2011).
Literature
Review
People’s
age, gender, job, computer literacy, and educational and social levels are
among the factors that may affect their main purpose of using social media
including YouTube. For example, Duggan & Smith (2013) found that Twitter
and Instagram have particular appeal to younger adults and urban dwellers,
while Pinterest is mostly used by female users (women are four times as likely
as men to be Pinterest users), and LinkedIn is especially popular among college
graduates and internet users in higher income households. As for video content,
online men are more likely to watch a video on YouTube on a typical day than
online women (23% vs. 15%). Hashtags staff has also reported that men use
YouTube more than women (Hashtags Staff, 2013).
Since YouTube is now the second
most-popular search engine on the internet (Rivas, Siltala, & Virji, 2013), it is not easy to discover its
users’ main purposes. They may use it for a variety of reasons. For instance,
in the US, one-fifth of YouTube users use it to get the news (Holcomb, Gottfried, & Mitchell,
2013). Considering the fact that 51% of
US adults use YouTube; we can say that 10% of the adult population use YouTube
as an alternative news source (Holcomb et al., 2013). YouTube is also the most
frequently used social media tool in the classroom (Moran, Seaman, & Tinti-Kane, 2011). Teachers and faculty apply it as
an educational resource using different pedagogical methods (Trier, 2007). In some classes, YouTube videos
are used as references in each lecture to show examples of what is being taught
(Sward, 2012). Prensky (2001) believes that
integrating YouTube videos, as educational tools, into foreign language
classrooms has very positive results. Students also use YouTube as a learning
tool outside the classroom, especially when they are not satisfied with their
professor’s lectures or when classroom materials are not enough (Sward, 2012). As for graduate students, since
they are mostly involved in research activities, YouTube might be adopted for
research purposes as well. However, there is no evidence to show their specific
purposes. What we know is that in general, undergraduate students are more
likely than graduate students to be heavy users of social media (McGough & Salomon, 2013).
Either
graduate or undergraduate, students do not use YouTube just for educational
purposes. Entertainment is the major function of a video-sharing website like
YouTube. They may just want to check out the latest music videos or share a
funny experience with their friends. Some believe that “if students would spend
less time on Facebook and other social networking sites, they would get better
grades” (Bart, 2009, para. 1). Some studies also confirm the
negative impact of social media on academic performance of university students (Asemah, Okpanachi, & Edegoh, 2013). However, a research study at the
University of New Hampshire found that the academic performance of college
students, who heavily engage in Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, and
LinkedIn, is as good as that of students who are less interested in using those
types of social media (Bart, 2009). More specifically, O'Brien (2011)
found no significant relationship between Facebook usage and academic
performance among undergraduate students. Therefore, in addition to the
contradictory evidence, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the specific
influence of other types of social media, including YouTube, on students’
academic performance. The result will be important because each type of social
media has particular features that might attract students.
Using
YouTube is not limited to passively searching for interesting videos and
watching them. A huge number of YouTube users use it more actively. In contrast
with passive users, they upload videos, make comments, subscribe to channels,
create playlists, and like and dislike clips. In fact, user-generated content
is one of the main features that differentiates social media technology from
the traditional types of media (such as news, radio, and television). According
to YouTube Statistics, every minute, 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube
(YouTube, 2014).
Users’
intentions for sharing videos on YouTube may be influenced by different factors
including gender. The
results of a survey among 341 video sharers revealed that in contrast with male
users, whose intention is strongly influenced by interpersonal norms, female
users’ intention is strongly influenced by usefulness and social norms (Yang, Hsu, & Tan, 2010). Gender differences are also
reported among university students. Vedantham (2011) conducted a study to
explore gender differences in online video creation among first-year
undergraduate students attending a highly selective research university. She
found that male users claim more participation in creating video and editing, as
well as more participation in making videos for required school projects (Vedantham, 2011). Another study on 1,060 urban
undergraduate students determined that “with creating film or video, fewer than
one in five women (16.9 percent) have done so compared with over a quarter
(26.6 percent) of men in the sample” (Hargittai & Walejko, 2007, p. 247). Although these studies show that
male undergraduate students use YouTube more actively compared to females, it
might be different among graduate students and therefore remains a gap in
knowledge.
Finally,
nationality might affect the preference for a certain type of social media. A
study by Bond University revealed that the four most popular social networking
websites are the same among domestic and international students in Australia
(in order, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn) (Saw, Abbott, Donaghey, &
McDonald, 2012). It was also
found that international students in the US prefer to be communicated to
through social media more than domestic students (Genius Recruiter, 2014). They follow or like their
university on social media more than their American peers. Few studies have
been conducted on this area and there is still plenty of room for research to
provide an understanding of the possible differences.
In
order to address the discussed issues, this study aimed to answer the following
questions:
·
What is graduate
students’ main purpose of using YouTube?
·
How graduate
students feel about the impact of using YouTube on their academic performance?
·
Is there a
significant difference between male and female graduate students in terms of
using YouTube and active engagement?
·
Is there a significant
difference between international and domestic graduate students in using
YouTube?
Methods
In
order to investigate the research questions, we used a survey method targeting
university students. A questionnaire, including twenty five questions, was developed
and distributed, in printed and online versions, among students at Texas Tech
University (TTU). The survey started with demographic questions about
participants’ age, level of study, and nationality, followed by questions
asking about the way students use, think of, and feel about social media (see
Appendix 1). We asked about both social media in general and specific types of
social media (e.g. Facebook or YouTube).
Students
of TTU were selected because of their convenient accessibility and proximity to
us. They were also considered fairly representative of university students in
the US in general. TTU is a public research university with current enrollment
of 35,158. Approximately 64% of the students are Caucasian, and 36% are from
ethnically diverse populations. While 84% of these students are Texas
residents, around 7% are of foreign residency (Texas Tech
University, 2014). Table 1 shows
the proportion of males and females in graduate and undergraduate levels.
For
the purpose of this study, we tried to collect data from almost the same number
of males and females who were willing to participate. We agreed not to put them
under pressure to check all items or give advice on how to fill
out the survey. Once someone began to fill out the survey, he/she was free to
withdraw at any time. Their feedback was welcomed as we were interested to hear
their opinion and apply it in our data analysis. Respondents were also provided
with detailed information about our class and research project if they asked
for it.
An
online survey was created in Google Forms due to its simplicity, easy data
organization, and access to unlimited respondents. Interested participants
could click on a link on our course blog to fill out the survey. Some of them
were also invited through university email. The questionnaire was made
available on October 17, 2014 and closed a week later on October 24. We
could monitor the progress on the online forms and easily export the data to an
Excel sheet. We also transformed the collected data from paper surveys to an
excel sheet and combined it with the first file to make it ready for data
analysis.
Results
Over
the period of one week of data collection, a total of 167 individuals responded
to the survey. We removed data from 15 respondents because they had not
completed all items. Hence, the total sample with sufficient data was 152. This
number consisted of 80 females and 72 males. As it is shown in figure 1, these
two groups exhibited considerable similarities in the level of study. However,
as we intended, nationality distribution did not show similarity in pattern
(Figure 2). Since the main purpose was to look into the use of YouTube by
American students, eighty percent of the participants were US citizens. This
difference was taken into consideration when comparing responses of this group
with that of international students (discussed in the next chapter). In total, almost
half of the whole sample (49%) was made up of undergraduate Americans, followed
by graduate Americans (26%).
After
identifying the distribution of data within different groups of participants,
we performed a series of analyses to find the answers to our research
questions. In order to determine the way that students use and feel about
YouTube, first we looked into their differences in using YouTube and other
types of social media. Data revealed that YouTube was the second most popular
social medium, along with Instagram, which was claimed to be used occasionally.
Facebook had the highest number of occasional users and Ello had the smallest
(Figure 3).
The
main purpose of using YouTube among all participants was entertainment (36.2%),
followed by learning about a topic (26%) and fixing a problem (20.6%) (Figure
4). These percentages were extracted from the number of participants who
claimed to use this media usually or often for each purpose. The pattern was similar
among the subsample of graduate students (Figure 5), meaning that the majority
of this group stated that they used YouTube usually or often for entertainment
(37%), followed by learning about a topic (32%) and fixing a problem (22%).
In
terms of the impact of social media on grades, 74% of respondents believed in
no effect, while 24% assumed that it could have a bad effect, and only three of
them (2%) believed in a good effect (Figure 6). None of those three were
graduate students, though. Figure 7 shows that a greater majority of graduate
students believed in no effect of social media on grades.
Regarding
the gender differences in actively using YouTube, male and female respondents,
who had claimed to use YouTube occasionally or post on it regularly, were
compared as representative active users. No big difference was found between
these two groups. Figure 8 shows that 30% of all female and 33.3% of all male
participants reported using or posting on YouTube regularly or occasionally.
The rest had checked either ‘have an account’ or ‘don’t know/use’. Furthermore,
the number of men who stated that they did not use or know YouTube (9.7% of all
men) was smaller than half of that number for women (20% of all women) (Figure
9). A similar comparison was made between male and female graduate students to
discover whether a higher level of study affects active use of YouTube or not.
The result, shown in Figure 10, indicated the same pattern. Totally, 26% of
female graduate students (8 out of 31 individuals) and 32.5% of male graduate
students (9 out of 28 individuals) reported using or posting on YouTube
regularly or occasionally. The rest had checked either ‘have an account’ or
‘don’t know/use’.
As
for the difference between American and international graduate students, they
were compared in terms of the amount of time they claim to spend on YouTube.
Figure 11 shows how each group reported using YouTube. From all American
graduate students (39 individuals), only 5% reported posting regularly on
YouTube, but 20.5% claimed to use it occasionally and 56.5% confirmed having a
YouTube account. On the other hand, from all international graduate students
(20 individuals), 20% reported posting regularly; 15% claimed to use it
occasionally, and 60% confirmed having a YouTube account. Lastly, while only 5%
in the international group claimed not to know or use YouTube, this number for
Americans was 18%.
Discussion
The
ultimate purpose of this study was to explore the way university students use
social media. We addressed four focused questions to find out what is special
about graduate students in terms of using YouTube, as one of the popular types
of social media. The first finding indicates that YouTube is the second most popular
social medium, along with Instagram, which makes it worthwhile to study. That
is, discovering the way young people use YouTube would help us to understand capabilities
of social media in general. Future studies may focus on the reasons behind
students’ preference for some sorts of social media. In the case of YouTube,
some of the reasons might be: ease of access; containing a huge collection of
videos; being one of the first video sharing platforms and one of a few free
video sharing platforms in the world.
The
results of the developed survey suggest that the major reasons for using YouTube
are entertainment and learning about a topic. What makes graduate students
different from other respondents, in terms of their purposes, is that they use
this website for entertainment and learning about a topic almost equally. In
contrast with other participants, there was not a big difference between the
number of graduate students who reported using YouTube usually or often for fun
and learning. A considerable number also use it when they need to figure out
how to fix a problem. Using YouTube as an entertainment platform is not
surprising, but the big number of students who use it for learning purposes
(either about a topic or to fix a problem) demonstrates the capability of this
medium to be used as a strong educational tool. Nevertheless, our results
indicate that only a small number of students are assigned to use it by their
instructors, which is inconsistent with what was shown by previous studies (Sward, 2012).
Regarding
the impact of using YouTube on academic performance, it was found that a large
majority of graduate students believe that social media do not have any effect
on school grades. Although we did not ask specifically about YouTube, this
finding indicates how they generally feel about the potential association
between using a website like YouTube and academic performance. This result is
consistent with what was found in another study by examining school grades (Bart, 2009). However, there is a need for a
study to examine the association between using social media and graduate
students’ actual academic performance, and compare it with findings of the
present study. The reason behind graduate students’ stronger belief in no
effect might be their almost equal use of YouTube (as one of the popular media)
for entertainment and learning. It means that although they consider it a
source of entertainment, they find it beneficial to improve their knowledge.
Therefore, they do not think of any damaging effect of spending time on
YouTube.
We
were also curious about gender differences because previous studies, mostly on
undergraduate students, found that men use YouTube more actively than women (Hargittai & Walejko, 2007). Our findings, however, did not
show a big difference between these two groups. It is worth reminding that
undergraduates formed the majority of our sample group too. As for graduate
students, men claimed to be slightly more active than women in using or posting
on YouTube. In addition, a significantly smaller number of men in this group
reported not knowing or using YouTube compared to women. Therefore, male
graduate students may be more active than their female peers.
Finally,
nationality was the last investigated variable. Comparing American and
international graduate students revealed that those in the latter group use YouTube
more actively. This difference, however, may not be significant, especially
with the unbalanced sampling from the two groups. It was also found that the
number of American graduate students who do not know or use this medium is
higher than those in the international group. This finding highlights
international students’ greater interest in using YouTube. Considering the fact
that learning about a topic was one of the major purposes of using YouTube, the
reason behind international students’ greater interest might be the more
convenient way of learning through watching videos comparing to text-reading, particularly
when it is not in one’s first language.
Although
this study provides new insights into the way young people use social media, some
drawbacks might threaten the generalizability of our results. First, our sample
was not sufficiently representative of the target population due to the small
number of survey respondents. Second, descriptive statistics showed that the
subsets of our sample did not have similar nationality and study level distributions.
In addition, this study was conducted at one university in one state. More
replications, in similar and other settings, are warranted to afford greater
confidence in study findings or shed light on other aspects of using social
media.
Conclusion
A
variety of capabilities make YouTube interesting to university students. Our
results showed that in addition to entertainment purposes, it is used as a
learning tool, especially among graduate students who spend more time on their
studies and doing research. This means that YouTube has a considerable
potential to be used for educational purposes. According to our findings, this
potential is not realized by university instructors. Furthermore, since YouTube
is the second most popular social media platform and the second largest search engine,
applying it in a class or incorporating it into course content does not take
any effort to encourage students to use it. They are already using it, regardless
of their demographic background. There is only a need for learning how to
leverage extensive capabilities of YouTube in the process of teaching and
learning.
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