Abstract:

To earn a university degree, all the students need to fulfill the requirement of writing an academic text, such as a Bachelor’s or a master’s Thesis. This task involves very specific writing competencies including the use of specific reference and citation guidelines (e.g., the APA format), expressing ideas based on previous literature, avoiding plagiarism, and discussing the results. One of the main difficulties that students face when writing academic texts includes the correct use of the APA reference and citation format, which often delays their work and causes them medium to high levels of anxiety. This study describes an innovative group educational intervention through Instagram aimed at improving university students’ competence to use the APA format and avoid plagiarism. An Instagram open account called @apa_rte was created for the purpose of the study. The account has now been working for two consecutive academic years (2021-2022 and 2022-2023), and nowadays has more than 1000 followers mostly from Spain but also from other Spanish-speaking countries.

The efficacy of the intervention was tested by using a quasi-experimental design: pre-post intervention, with an experimental group of students who followed the educational intervention (N = 200), and a control group who did not (N = 260). Participants were students of degrees or masters where the utilization of the APA format was required (55.1% psychology, 41.7% education) from three Spanish universities. Prior to the intervention, participants completed questionnaires assessing their competence in using the APA reference and citation format, self-efficacy for writing and defending academic texts, anxiety towards writing and defending academic texts, and perception of the utility of Instagram for academic purposes. Students in the experimental group were asked to enroll in a 20-week-length intervention through Instagram, taking place from October to March (in both academic years: 2021-2022 and 2022-2023). Data were collected at the beginning and at the end of the intervention each year. They received information about APA and interacted with the Instagram account in different ways. After the intervention, students in the experimental and control group completed questionnaires assessing the same variables as in the pre-intervention assessment. In the second year, in the experimental group, we also added a questionnaire to measure the students’ motivations to participate in the intervention.

The results showed that the educational intervention improved students’ competence in the use of APA guidelines (p < .001), increased students’ self-efficacy in using APA when writing their academic texts (p < .001), and decreased their extrinsic motivation to participate in the intervention (p = .002). Anxiety levels and the perceived usefulness of Instagram to learning academic content did not significantly change after the intervention. As for students in the control group, their competence in the use of APA guidelines did not significantly vary after the intervention, while their anxiety levels (p < .001) and self-efficacy levels (p = .002). increased after the intervention. Overall, our findings point out that the educational intervention conducted via Instagram was attractive to the students (the account has more than 1000 followers). The intervention proved to be efficient and helped students acquire competencies to successfully use APA guidelines.

Keywords:

Educational intervention, education innovation, APA format, university education, Instagram.