First year HE students´ social media skills Sakari Saukkonen and Jaana Kettunen Institute for Educational Research University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Background of the study Part of the Development of Guidance and Generic Skills in Higher Education (OHTY) project Aim is to identify how HE career guidance make use of the new possibilities of web 2.0 and social media o How well-known social media applications are among HE career guidance practitioners and students o What applications are used/ could be used as a part of the guidance practice o Collecting and sharing good practices

Potentials of web 2.0 & social media By web 2.0 we refer to new modes, contents and techniques arising on the internet which enables user activity It enables users, even those with very little technological skills, to become productive members of social networks, getting involved in publication, sharing and collaboration Guidance services are becoming more easily accessible all the time – e.g. thanks to the wireless techniques and the developing mobile devices Services can be delivered through the existing channels: networks & communities where the net generation meet Social media: people collaborate with other people

Rationale for using social media in HE Improving learning outcomes Learning is a collaborative and collective construction of new knowledge on the basis of past experience and current understanding: shift from transmissional teaching to shared understanding (Wells & Ball, 2008) Fostering guidance (as defined by Rott, 2006) in career guidance and educational guidance - learning from peers, sharing information, reaching towards different communities inside & outside HE in psychological counselling and couselling for disabled and students with special needs - only limited use

Research questions 1.Which social media tools first year HE students use ? 2.For what purposes those tools are used ? 3.Have the students used social media as a part of their studies in HE institution? 4.How students would like to make use of the possibilities of web 2.0 in guidance?

Data A pilot study aimed at first year students of University of Jyväskylä Data was collected in March 2010 as an Internet questionaire from the students of seven different faculties. Response rate 26 % (N=1658, n=424) o female (76 %), male (24%) 45 % of the respondents were year-olds

General view Net generation, according to their technology ownership (adsl connections, computers etc.) has arrived at the university, but that is really just a part of the story... Among the first year students net is widely used o 61% used Internet hours every day o 25% used Internet for hours o 4% very heavy users who spent more than 6 hours a day in the Internet o 9% used Internet less than one hour a day

Social media preferences Students were asked to choose from 14 different well-known social media services and pick up the mostly used ones. Those were: – YouTube, used by 94% of the students Facebook, 83% Messenger, 81% Rarely used were: Twitter 11 % SecondLife, 2% LinkedIn, 4%

Using social media in studies & in guidance Not common, students are not accustomed to share and collaborate collectively over the web They send messages to and share personal information (mobile, Messenger, Facebook) with friends and fellow students Only 14% of the respondents had used Google Docs for collaborative writing of study tasks is the most used communication channel with HE teachers, among students instant messages are more common on daily use Students do read blogs but only few write blogs or create any other kind of web content Face-to-face guidance was preferred, the use of Internet in guidance was considered odd among the respondents

Use of Internet and Social Media

Tentative conclusions Student’s every day technology practices may not be directly applicable to academic tasks Internet is seen as a place of entertainment and personal communication Net communities (like Facebook) are for creating and maintaining personal relationships Studying, learning, academic advising and guidance are mostly separated from the net We have the technology and we have the generation who masters it but we seem to lack people who are willing to do "serious business" over the Internet - like collaborative learning or guidance & counselling

Thank you! For further information, please contact: Sakari Saukkonen Jaana Kettunen University of Jyväskylä, Finnish Institute for Educational Research