Abstract:

Humans have an inherent capacity to teach and learn in community. In fact, teaching is a social act in which one learns from the teacher and from interaction with peers. When teaching, we need to consider the emotional aspects of social learning because they influence student´s academic performance and motivation. For example, student-teacher interactions influence academic self-efficacy and student´s motivation towards studying. During Covid-19 pandemic, to stop the spread of Covid-19, universities quickly shifted to fully online teaching delivery. Therefore, the benefits of direct social interaction (both teacher-student and between students) were cut short. Although social media has not been originally created for educational purposes, several authors have reported the potential of social media platforms as teaching and learning tools. Additionally, it has been seen that social networks allow teachers to interact with their students in a way that resembles the in-person class interaction.

Given the above, the aim of our study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a teaching innovation project in increasing students' motivation towards online instruction during the Covid-19 pandemic. The social network Facebook was used, since it is frequently used by students, it is accessible, free and allows the creation of private groups. In addition, the study aimed to identify aspects of students´ Facebook experience that may influence their perception about their learning process.

102 pre-graduate students enrolled in the degree of nursery education participated in this study. Students' participation in the study was voluntary, and no contents of the subject were exclusively explained through Facebook. We measured students’ motivation towards online teaching before (pre-test T0) and after participating in a teaching intervention via Facebook (post-test T1). The teaching intervention consisted on creating a Facebook Group related to the subject and posting videos and practical activities. Students were asked to provide comments on Facebook that were related to the subject.

Our results show statistically significant increases in students’ intrinsic motivation (t(101)=-5.45; p=.00) and identify regulation (t(101)=-4.83; p=.00) and decreases demotivation (t(101)=-4.69; p=.00) from before and to after participating in the intervention. In addition, Facebook was highly valued by students, they considered that Facebook activities helped them to better understand the subject and they would recommend using Facebook in other subjects. In addition, they also highlighted that the class interactions on Facebook supported their learning experience, and considered it positive to receive feedback from the professor and their peers after having posted on Facebook.

Acknowledgement:
This work has been supported by University of Zaragoza: PIIDUZ_2_606.

Keywords:

Facebook, Motivation, Covid-19 pandemic, Educational intervention, TIC.