Research: Twitter teaching method has a negative impact on academic performance:

By Muhammad Anas Bukhari | February 8, 2020

Research: Twitter teaching method has a negative impact on academic performance:

The Washington Post reported that researchers at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy, conducted a survey of about 1,500 students in 70 high schools in the country. In the survey, students read and analyzed a classic novel, The Late Mattia Pascal, by Nobel laureate Luigi Pirandello.

Traditional teaching students are better than Twitter teaching
Among them, half of the students learn by reading and discussing the contents of books through the Twitter study group, and the other half learn through traditional classroom teaching. The student’s learning outcome is measured by the reading comprehension of the literary works and the test scores of the memory.

The final test results show that the average score of students using the Twitter method is 25% to 40% behind the control group, and the understanding and memory of the novel is far behind the students who learn by traditional methods. It is worth noting that students with good grades, including girls, have the most retreat in this test. This result supports similar views of Internet blogs and social networking sites that affect academic performance.

Using Twitter’s teaching method, it originated from students’ interest in web platform or mobile chat. Proponents believe that using students’ interest in online social tools and guiding them to discuss and exchange learning content on social tools can stimulate students’ interest in learning. In this kind of tweet method, students post the original texts of the texts by Twitter, share their reading experiences, exchange their understanding and opinions on the books, and the teachers participate in the discussion group and guide the discussion of the students. .

Gian Paolo Barbetta, a professor of economic policy at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart, who led the research, said the results showed that Twitter was not only useless, but rather negative. “I can’t say whether the students’ thinking has changed, but there must be changes in behavior and performance.”

The survey results are contrary to people’s imagination
The study is aimed at a teaching project initiated by ThLetteratura, a local Italian organization, on Twitter. In this project, students complete reading, discussing, commenting, excerpting and rewriting specific literary works in a group built by Twitter in accordance with a study plan.

According to the rules of Twitter, each discussion does not exceed 280 words. Karen North, a professor of journalism and communication at the University of Southern California, says that 280 words are not enough for people to get complete information: “Without a complete background, you are more likely to go astray.”

Due to the popularity of Twitter teaching methods, it has been introduced into teaching activities by hundreds of high schools in Italy. The research report points out that, unlike traditional Internet platforms, new social media allows interaction between users, users and authors. This feature has prompted many teachers to adopt this platform to encourage students to participate in teaching activities.

For the Twitter teaching method, Babita said that we thought that this teaching method was beneficial, but the investigation found the opposite. To get a more accurate conclusion that Twitter has a negative impact on learning, more data is needed. But Babita also believes that this study on the effects of Twitter teaching is the most rigorous and the most widely surveyed sample compared to similar research. With more investigations, we will be more cautious in using social platforms for teaching.

Deepen doubts about modern human behavior turning to Internet space
The results of the survey show, to a certain extent, that at least in the teaching of literature courses, online social tools are not only of little help to students, but have a negative impact.

Babita mentioned possible reasons, such as the illusion that students think that the content of the book can be understood only on Twitter, rather than spending time on the reading of the book. The report also pointed out that the Twitter platform is easy to distract students, they may be distracted to browse other content and chat; and the teacher’s contribution to teaching is reduced, and the tweet on Twitter cannot be used in class. The effect of face-to-face teaching.

Previous surveys have shown that reading through the screen can lead to a broad reading of the reader, rather than a deeper understanding of the original intention. A survey in 2016 said that college students who are allowed to use computers are worse off than paper and pen. In a paper in early 2019, the question was asked: Is it really beneficial if online social media can reflect reality?

This research in Italy has further deepened doubts about the modern human behavior that began to turn to the Internet space, especially in terms of learning.