STATISTICS RESEARCH: Examining Social Media and Higher Education: An Empirical Study on Rate My Professors.com and Its Impact on College Students (original) (raw)
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The purpose of this study was to investigate and measure the influence of Rate My Professors.com on consumers’ (college students) and their choices. This two-year study examined the influence of social media on consumer behavior. A sample (N = 383) of consumers were examined for this study. First, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to examine the factor structure and psychometric properties of the instrument and survey items. Second, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to validate the survey items used to measure the three constructs. A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach using AMOS utilized for model testing and to verify the three constructs.
Social Media in Higher Education
In only a few short years, the popularity of social networking sites (SNS) has increased dramatically. Recently, colleges and universities have begun incorporating these tools into their marketing mix to connect with everyone, from prospective students to alumni. However, little serious or reliable research existed to indicate whether these networks were an appropriate or effective recruitment resource for colleges to use.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND STUDENTS' CHOICE OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION
Social media and students’ Choice of higher education institution, 2021
Over the past decade, online social networks (OSN) have become ingrained in our daily lives. They have changed the way young people live and become one of the most important means of communication and entertainment. The use of social media by teens and young adults is on the rise. Higher education institutions recognise the value of social media as a tool of communication to provide information to target students and use its platforms to advertise their programmes to prospective students. Students also use Social Media and Facebook to access and analyse information to make informed study decisions. The current study examines how social media in general, and Facebook in particular, influences students' choice of study programme and Higher Education Institute (HEI). Quantitative research methods were employed as being most appropriate for this particular study. A total of 170 students from Oxford Business College (OBC), U.K., participated voluntarily in the survey; sixty-three (63) male and one hundred and seven (107) female students. All students completed a survey questionnaire based on four sections (A, B, C and D) comprising fifteen questions primarily based on the Likert scale. Simple descriptive statistics and SPSS were used to identify and analyse the factors students considered most important (influential) in their (the students’) choice of programme of study and HEI. The most popular social media site was Facebook, followed by Instagram. In regards to influence, Facebook seems to be more influential than other social media sites. It is also obvious that Facebook has been used as a marketing tool by the majority of HEIs. We do not make any claims regarding the generalisability of our study’s findings because of the small sample size and convenience sampling used in the study. However, the results generally support what is already known about the most popular social media site - Facebook - as having a positive influence on students’ choice of programme and Higher Education Institute.
Opinions of Faculty Members on the Effects of Using Social Media in Higher Education
International Journal of Research in Education and Science , 2023
This study aims to evaluate the opinions of faculty members about the effects of social media in education. The research was carried out as a qualitative study, and phenomenological design was used in the study. We selected a total of 36 faculty members to participate in an interview about their perceptions of social media effects on education. The results showed that most faculty members think that social media is an effective educational tool. In the context of the positive aspects, the role of social media in higher education is indicated as a support tool, a followup tool for educational activities, an entertaining platform, communication tool, resource, learning management tool and a guide. According to the findings, more than half of the academics think that the role of social media in education is positive. The study predicts that social media will have different roles in future education with the increasing number of users every day.
Social Media and Higher Education
Handbook of Research on Integrating Social Media into Strategic Marketing, 2015
The constant rise in tuition fees has created increasing pressure for British universities to augment the range of marketing tools used to attract students in competition with both domestic and overseas institutions. This chapter investigates the role of social media as a communication and marketing tool for Higher Education Institutions in the UK. Social media is a powerful tool for both direct and indirect marketing, and is highly relevant for universities targeting youngsters who belong to the so-called Generation Y. After presenting the background for social media marketing and higher education, we investigate whether the use of social media as a marketing tool has been effective in raising awareness of British universities. To do so, we collect data on the use of social media by HEIs (in the UK and in the USA for comparison), as well as data on students' response to these new marketing strategies. Unlike many other organisations, it seems that social media play a positive role in promoting British Universities, although the evidence suggests that they still tend to use social media too much like more traditional forms of marketing and PR.
Social Media and Use of Technology in Higher Education
Handbook of Research on Education and Technology in a Changing Society
Social media has, in the past decade, transformed the way students and faculty communicate in the teaching and learning process. The teaching and learning process in higher education is currently experiencing a technological revolution. This is mainly because social media is presently used as a tool by faculty and administrators to communicate with students inside and outside of the classroom. In this chapter, descriptive statistics are used to analyze secondary data on the trend of faculty use of social media by discipline, demographics, and number of years. It also analyzes the use of social media sites, barriers to the use of social media sites, as well as faculty use of social media in higher education. Results show that less than 50% of faculty use social media for instruction. Overall, younger faculty (under 35 years) report the use of SMT 55.7% more than older faculty (55 and above years). Faculty in Arts and Humanities indicate a higher use of social media than all disciplin...
2012
"The importance of the Internet as commercial platform is by now universally recognized, and businesses increasingly adopt online marketing channels at the cost of traditional ones. The social media, being second generation (Web 2.0) internet applications, allow interaction, one-to-one communication, customer engagement, and user generated content. The interest of higher education institutions in social media as part of the marketing toolkit is increasing, but little is known about the potential of these channels in higher education marketing strategies. Even less is known about the role of social media as influencers of future students in the choice of study and university. This article presents the results of a study identifying the role and importance of social media on the choice of future students for a study and university in comparison with the traditional university marketing channels in the Netherlands. The study identifies and describes three market segments among future students based on their use of the social media. "
2020
Social media has revolutionized the way people communicate and interact, making it easier and faster for people to get in touch with each other. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of social media on incoming students selected and chosen by the Higher Education Institution (HEI). Based on recent research, this paper proposes the application of a Dutch (Constantinides, 2001) and a Brazilian study (Branco, 2018), about the influence of social media in the decision process of selecting higher education institutions. In order to carry out the research, a survey with 464 respondents was applied in a Brazilian university, with freshmen students in the courses of the Applied Social Sciences area like business administration, accounting and others. The questionnaire was constructed using five point Likert scale. Data treatment was made via cluster, factor analysis and analysis of variance. The questions were structured in 5 (five) main groups: Use of Social Media; Social Media Activities; Channels used to search for information about HEIs; Influence factors in choosing a HEI and Socioeconomic and Demographic Information. The findings of the research indicate the existence of three distinct segments in the population of incoming students regarding social media activities: social engagement; information seeking and content contribution. The results showed that this sample is very adherent to the use of social media and the Internet as an information agent. In addition, it was possible to group individuals into three clusters, based on their social media habits and the main influences on the choice of higher education. Among the social media access platforms, WhatsApp (98.7%) has a large daily adherence, with concentrated uses between 3 to 6 hours per day (62.1%) and also amazing uses by 6.7% of respondents with more than 10 hours a day. Youtube as well has a great use, concentrating between 1 to 3 hours a day. Social media is an important source of "information for students", with about 65% claiming to use such platforms for this matter. It is worth highlighting the great importance of the "Higher Education Institution websites" as much as "families, friends and acquaintances". Among the items with low membership are blogs, forums, flyers and billboards, visiting programs, as well as traditional radio and television ads. Decisive factors in the process of choosing an HEI were the perception that it forms skilled professionals for the market, the interest in the courses offered and the quality of education. The research also points out the influence of friends and family in the decision making. The offering of cultural activities has a low appeal when making this decision. As presented by the research conducted by Constantinides and Stagno (2011), and Branco (2108), the results show the possibility of replicating the methodology as a basis for understanding social media as a factor of influence, as well as allowing the comparison of results among students from different countries, distinct regions and diverse level of instruction.
Social Media in Higher Education: A literature review and
2012
Her current research focuses on college planning strategies and trajectories of socioeconomically and racial/ethnically diverse community college and broad access university students, with particular attention to low-income student challenges and Latino students' social networks and major/post-graduate/career decision-making. She is the author of After Admission: From College Access to College Success, with Rosenbaum and Person, as well as a number scholarly articles published journals such as in the