Abstract:

The use of emerging technologies such as social media has been frequently encouraged among university teachers. However, questions still remain regarding the usefulness of this teaching method. The aim of this study is to understand the relationship between teachers’ use of social media in classroom and students’ perceptions of teacher performance, measured in terms of teacher helpfulness. Data collection took place at a Spanish university at the beginning of 2017. A total of 221 students participated in the study, both national and international. Data were subject to normality tests and subsequent nonparametric Spearmen correlation. Findings show that, in general, the correlation between teacher use of social media and helpfulness is not significant. This result has also been confirmed when two subsamples composed of national and international students were considered separately. Item-to-item correlations were even weaker on the international students subsample. Implications are discussed regarding the effectiveness of social media use for teaching and learning purposes in higher education institutions.

Keywords:

Social media, teacher performance, helpfulness, national students, international students.