The educational use of facebook as a social networking site in animal physiology classes

Abstract

This study aims at performing a sample application of educational use of Facebook as a social networking site in Animal Physiology classes, and at determining sudents’ views on the application. The research sample was composed of 29 third year undergraduate students attending the Biology Education Department of Hacettepe University. The Applied part of the research was performed in the Spring semester of the 2014-2015 academic year in Animal Physiology classes. A Facebook group called “BIO 314 Animal Physiology” was created for sharing purposes in relation to the course content, and the lecturer as well as the students shared  several times in the group for fourteen weeks and they made comments on instances of sharing.  Besides, the lecturer assigned the students tasks for the activities and the students were expected to fulfill the tasks. Students’ views were obtained through a survey of open-ended questions prepared as the tool of data collection and then the views were put to qualitative analysis. The results showed that the use of Facebook for educational purposes made such things as sharing, helping each other, increasing communication, reaching the lecturer and visualising the content easier for students but that there were also students holding negative views on the issue.