Relationships between blogging activeness and the characteristics of participants and blogs during teaching practice and induction year

Abstract

Blog as the representative of social software has been used in education for several years and its positive effect in the field has been asserted in many studies. This study presents relationships between blog-use activeness and the characteristics of learners and blogs during teaching practice and induction year. 1,137 blog postings of 192 participants from 13 collective blogs and also their self-reports in pre- and post-questionnaires were analysed. Results showed several relationships which accentuated learner's age and perceived benefit of blogging as important factors among participants' characteristics influencing blogging activeness. Among the characteristics of blog most of the correlations emerged between blogging activeness and the strength of social relationships between the participants in the blog and the average number of comments (per new posts). Also mentor's participation in the blog and giving beginning task for learners in the blog seemed to be important factors supporting more active blog-use. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.