Twitter Discussion in Higher Education: Are Students Ready?

Abstract

Online discussion has proven to be an added value in courses in higher education. However, the potency of it often not reaches to its full extend. Former research suggests that good tutoring and using micro-blog software and can help achieving valuable online discussion. In this explorative study a traditional online discussion forum was replaced by Twitter as discussion tool in a higher education course. The attitude of students towards, and the participation and nature of online discussion in this course was investigated. It turned out that no student was willing to participate in online discussion. Therefore, focus-group interviews and a survey were conducted to clarify reasons for nonparticipation. It can be concluded that students do not feel an urge to participate in online discussion on any platform, and it is suggested that a focus on implementing online discussion is necessary for it to realize its full educational potential.