Student Interviews

The next phase of my research involves interviewing students about my software, and social network usage in general as well as specifically for education. The aim is to get some understanding about why the students do and don't use the software, what other tools they use, and what considerations go into using social tools for learning.

Regarding the usage and lack thereof, I'm interested in the students who have used the system; especially those who have posted or rated more frequently than most. I'd like to discover why they post; whether they did for a while and then stopped, and if so why; what motivations an considerations went into posting; what they though might come of posting something. Also, what hurdles there were - both technically and in other ways - did they get a positive reaction, or any reaction at all? I'm also interested in the regular non-posting downloaders - what they did with the downloads, how it could serve them better, and what they felt about downloading but not contributing. It would also make sense to talk to the students who aren't downloading either; what is it about the system that leaves them feeling uninterested?

Regarding other tools: the literature indicates that there is almost universal usage of social networking tools among students, so I'm interested in what they use (some of the quantitative information will be gathered in a survey that is coming soon, which is unrelated to my research), but also what they use them for. Do they use different networks for different purposes? Are some of the needs I am trying to cater for well-served elsewhere, and would I be better served just integrating those tools rather than developing my own. I'm interested in what motivates different activities in different networks (for example: some might use Facebook for social interaction, Twitter for academic engagement, and LinkedIn to try to get that first job after graduation), and how those link back to the work of learning.

Throughout all of this I will be trying to uncover what needs to be done to make the social learning tools I'm building more engaging and useful.

I would like to get: three students who are relatively frequent posters, two or three who rate others' posts frequently, two who only download, and two who don't use the system at all. There might be some overlap in the first two categories, so I may be able to keep it down to 8 interviews. My plan is break down the data into these categories, and select students based on the data. Where possible I'll also try to make the selection demographically cross-sectional as well (make sure there are representative numbers of males and females, and younger and older students). Once I've selected potential interviewees, I'll email then requesting an interview, and arrange a mutually convenient time. I expect I'll also need a few backup interviewees, to cover for those who refuse my request.