Abstract:

The recent literature on social networks as tools to enhance education has highlighted the relevance of these learning environments to achieve the essential goals of higher education in colleges and universities. Most of the investigations confirm that Facebook, along with other social networks, media and e-communication tools, can enable not only the extension of the university classroom in a new way but also support and enhance flipped learning.
Therefore, by drawing on this primary scholarly, the main aim of this paper is to deepen and grasp the relationship between social networks and flipped learning in university education. To better examine and understand this relation, we have conducted a case study and shown its results.This case study concerned the experience of using a methodology of teaching sports history based on flipped learning enhanced by the use of social networks – Facebook in particular – in an Italian University. In order to collect the data of the case study, qualitative-quantitative research methodologies were used.
The data were obtained from interviews and survey questionnaires administered to a sample of over 1,200 students attending the blended course of sports history at the University of Rome Foro Italico, Italy. The data have been processed by statistical and text analysis programs. The programs have shown frequencies, knots, created word trees, lists, and concept maps regarding students’ opinions on the use of Facebook as a virtual learning environment for the enhancement of flipped classroom. The aim of this analysis was to understand and grasp, by comparing data, in which way and whether the use of Facebook has favored the development of a real flipped classroom in the blended course of sports history and, together with it, the flipped learning of students. Finally, the data obtained from the research have been used to build a possible application model of an active flipped classroom to university education in the scholarly domain of the sports humanities.

Keywords:

Education, university, flipped learning, social networks.