Abstract:

Writing and defending academic texts is a requirement to earn a university degree. This task involves specific competencies needed to write and defend an academic piece of work in front of an examining committee. Previous findings indicate that university students face multiple difficulties when writing academic texts, particularly when dealing with APA guidelines. This study describes an educational intervention via Instagram aimed at enhancing students’ competence in using APA, as well as their self-efficacy toward that specific task. It also aims at decreasing students’ anxiety levels towards using APA guidelines and writing academic texts.

This study follows a quasi-experimental design (pre-post intervention, with control group). At the two time points (i.e., pre-intervention, post-intervention) participants completed questionnaires including these measures: a) APA competence: objective test formed by 10 multiple answer questions that register students’ competence to use APA style for in-text citing and referencing; b) Self-efficacy for writing and defending academic texts: this scale consists of eight items, five of them related to writing self-efficacy and three of them to self-efficacy in relation to the public defense of academic work. For example: When writing a text, I can synthesize and integrate ideas obtained from multiple scientific sources to support my arguments. c) Anxiety towards writing and defending academic texts (2 items; e.g., using APA style would make me anxious) and d) the Perception of the utility of Instagram for academic purposes scale (Earlan, 2019; 9 items). The experimental group (i.e., participants of the intervention who completed both pre- and post-questionnaires) were 120 students and the control group was formed of 103 students. Most of the participants were psychology or education undergraduate students (90.37%), 9.63% were Master students, and 83.49% were women. We created the Instagram account @APA_rte and asked participants in the experimental group to follow it. During the 20 weeks that the intervention lasted, they had to participate in weekly quizzes regarding the use of the APA format (APA Quiz). They also received information about APA by posts and interacted with the Instagram account in different ways. Our results show that students in the experimental group improved their competence for using APA format (i.e., improved their results in an APA exam, F (1, 119) = 68.15, p < .001; η2 = .43). Those who participated in the intervention also felt more confident using APA and writing academic texts (F (1, 119) = 5.35, p < .01, η2 = .18) and expressed lower anxiety levels (F (1, 119) = 56.37, p < .001, η2 = .14). Participants perceived Instagram as a useful and attractive tool for learning academic content, especially after the intervention (F (1, 119) = 6.49, p < .01, η2 = .12). No differences were found in any of these variables between the pre-intervention and post-intervention in the control.

Our findings point that the educational intervention conducted via Instagram was very attractive to the students (@APA_rte is followed by almost 800 people). The intervention proved to be efficient and helped students acquire competencies to successfully use APA guidelines.

Acknowledgment:
This work has been supported by Universidad de Zaragoza: PIIDUZ_2_2 and Universidad Pontificia de Comillas: 2021-07.

Keywords:

Instagram, APA guidelines, Educational intervention, ICT.