A Worldwide Survey on the Use of Social Networking in Higher Education

Abstract

Social networking is becoming a more powerful tool for students for communication, information sharing, and discussions. This paper presents a study, based on a survey questionnaire, which aims to investigate to what extent and for what purposes teachers from different countries from all over the world use social networking in their teaching practice. The attitude towards the use of social networking in higher education in general is examined. The study is intended to seek dependences between the answers related to the above issues and different teachers' characteristics, on the point of view if the teachers are well informed about social networking sites, or whether they participate in interest groups or research related to social networking and higher education. Finally, summarized results of the survey are presented, depending on the continent where the countries of the participants are located.