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Instant Messaging in Classes

Instant Messaging in Classes. Wooseob Jeong School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin - Milwauke. Not kids’ stuff any more …. “No longer just a toy for teens, instant messaging has evolved into a powerful tool for work.” (PC World, February 2006, p.66)

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Instant Messaging in Classes

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  1. Instant Messaging in Classes Wooseob Jeong School of Information Studies University of Wisconsin - Milwauke ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  2. Not kids’ stuff any more … • “No longer just a toy for teens, instant messaging has evolved into a powerful tool for work.” (PC World, February 2006, p.66) • What about for (higher) education? ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  3. Kids are growing … • IM was considered as “a teen thing” at some point (Thomas, 2001) and not considered as a serious tool for education. However, those teens have grown as college students and more and more people are using IM in various settings. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  4. Faculty is slow … • Cohn (2002) urged universities and faculty members to adopt IM and train themselves in using IM as both prospective and current college students are using IM pervasively, although Walther was somewhat pessimistic on adults’, including faculty, readiness for IM (Thomas, 2001). ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  5. Jeong at ALISE 2002 … • Jeong (2002) presented findings from his implementation of IM in both local and distance courses. Students appreciated not having to wait for answers to questions and appreciated the more informal context of IM conversations. Surveyed students felt that the potential for IM to be useful in the distance learning environment was very high. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  6. IM interaction among students • Nicholson (2002) reported a survey result with 30 students participated, saying students who used IM services found it easier to communicate, felt a stronger sense of community, and had more venues for informal and social communication about not only class material, but also information about the school and their common degree program. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  7. Problem Statement • However, while they provide general overviews of IM usage in education, particularly with quantitative data collected by survey methods, few of the previous research on IM in educational settings do not provide in-depth “story” between students and instructors while they are using IM for educational purposes. Knowing the interactions in IM usage is very important to set up optimal conditions for IM in educational settings. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  8. Purpose of Study • The purpose of this study is to listen to those students who participated in IM communication in class setting and based on their stories, to identify potentials and obstacles and to suggest optimal conditions for IM usage for classes. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  9. Data Collection • 19 classed from summer 2001 to spring 2004 • 247 students participated in the survey. • 196 participated in IM • 51 did not participated in IM, but did the survey. • The topics of the classes were both technical and non-technical: Visual Basic, Multimedia, HTML, JavaScript, and XML vs. Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Senior Capstone. • Both undergraduate and graduate level courses • Both on campus and online classes. • Since the summer of 2003, IM became required. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  10. Quantitative Data Analysis (1) • Descriptive Statistics • Overall rating for the instructor’s IM communication: 7.17 • Potentials of IM in a traditional, or face to face, class setting: 6.48 • Potential of IM in an online setting: 7.49 ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  11. Quantitative Data Analysis (2) • Potential dependent variables for inferential statistics for the ratings: • student level (graduate v. undergraduate) • technical aspect (non-technical course such as HCI v. technical course XML) • mode of course (online v. face-to-face) • characteristics of IM participation (optional v. required) • However, a multivariate analysis by SPSS showed that there is no significant difference for any of these factors. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  12. Qualitative Data Analysis • Three aspects of IM usage in classes were derived from a “data-to-concept” method which is usually used in grounded theory research: • 1) positive aspects in using IM • 2) negative aspects in using IM • 3) Resistance to participating in IM • This method is considered as a best method for this kind of “story-telling” qualitative study and has been used frequently, particularly in information seeking behavior research. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  13. Positive Aspects in Using IM (1) • Availability and instant responses • What I liked best on IM in this class is the instant responses back from the professor. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) • I appreciated the IM option because it offered real time answers to questions and the professor was available when I needed to ask a question. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) • Instant accessibility – particularly important in distance education. Both the student and the instructor can freely contact each other, without limitations due to distance and/or geographical barriers, without lengthy waiting for e-mails or phone calls. (Fall 2002, 310 online, not required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  14. Positive Aspects in Using IM (2) • Comfort zone / clarification • Easy to get hold of the professor. Questions were easy to ask, gave me more time to think and ask. Kept it as personal as an appointment. (Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) • It has been great all semester knowing the Professor was just a click away. It really gave me a sense of feeling connected to the professor, and even to the department and the college. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) • I have really felt lost in some of the Distance Education courses I have taken even with the benefit of chat and email. Chat is cumbersome with many people involved and email does take time for the receiver to respond. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  15. Positive Aspects in Using IM (3) • Replacing office hours • It might be helpful though if the instructor could put aside a special hour for each week, just so students could log in and ask questions. It could be sort of like “online office hours”. Since I’m online all the time, it was very easy to catch up with the instructor. But some students might have much busier schedules, and they might not be so lucky to catch the instructor online as much. (Fall 2002, 310, online, not required) • It allowed me to get in touch with my professor almost instantly when I needed to. It eliminated the need to go to his office during his office hours. In other words, it resulted in the professor being much more accessible. (Fall 2004, 310, online, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  16. Negative Aspects in Using IM (1) • Miscommunication / lack of visual interaction • I find it hard to read people’s emotions with electronic communications. Without knowing the person, it is hard to know if they are annoyed or they are just trying to say what has to be said. Without the face to face interaction you have no frame of reference or body language to read more into the words. (Fall 2003, 310, online, required) • It works well if both parties are not distracted. I have communicated with someone who was distracted once and it was annoying. However that happens on the phone too. The disadvantages of IM are that you lose nonverbal cues, you can be misinterpreted or misinterpret someone else, the other personal may not be online, the other person may be slow to respond or not respond at all. (Fall 2002, 310 online, not required) • Numerous comments on this issue. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  17. Negative Aspects in Using IM (2) • Privacy and intrusiveness issues • I wish it was possible to have different status with different people. For example, I use IM at work and at home. When I’m at home on a vacation day, I do not necessarily want to communicate with work all day, but I might want to IM a classmate, friend or family member. I know that on MSN messenger, you can appear offline when, in fact, you are really online. But your status appears the same to everyone on your list. (Fall 2003, 310, online, required) • It felt odd to think that someone else could see that I was on my computer at any given time. I found myself tinkering with the settings to provide a little more feeling of privacy. (Summer 2003, 891, online, not required) • I’m not very fond of IM, or chatting. It’s just that I’m too busy to spend time chatting and I don’t like to be in the middle of doing something on the computer and my IM pops up with a message, that I don’t plan on responding to at the current time. (Fall 2002, 310, online, not required) • I feel I cannot interrupt you to IM. I enjoy asynchronous communication because it lets each party participate at their leisure. When I use IM, I usually expect an instant response, and that somehow seems unfair since you have so many students and so many classes. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  18. Negative Aspects in Using IM (3) • Including fellow classmates • Maybe each class member should have access to the class members IM address. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) • My only real complaint is that more students didn’t use the IM option for communication – particularly when it came to doing group projects. (Fall 2002, 310, online, not required) • I didn’t communicate with anyone but the instructor on IM. It would have been very useful on final projects to have the ability to speak with group members. Most didn’t have IM IDs. (Fall 2002, 310, online, not required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  19. Negative Aspects in Using IM (4) • Concerns about instructor’s availability • The only thing I didn’t like about using IM was that when a person was “idle” or “away from their desk”, I never knew if that person got my message. (Fall 2003, 240, on campus, required) • I am never sure if the person is available. The problem I have is the login the first time. Yahoo is not very helpful when looking to login help. The help was not very clear. (Fall 2003, 310, on campus, required) • Sometimes it was hard to tell if Dr. Jeong was actually at his computer or not - it takes some time for IM programs to display you as inactive. I also had to identify myself by name and which class I was in so that he knew who I was as opposed to when I ask him questions in person in class - he knows exactly who I am and which class I am in. (Fall 2002, 310, on campus, not required) • Not knowing when you would be online and being able to chat. (Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  20. Negative Aspects in Using IM (5) • Aversions to installing more programs • I hate installing another program on my PC. (Fall 2003, 240, on campus, required) • Have to use a separate service to contact the instructor using IM (either Yahoo or Hotmail). I use AOL as my ISP and AOL has an IM which should be “world-wide.” (Fall 2003, 310, on campus, required) • I think IM on different services can be confusing and I didn’t like having to install a different message system (Yahoo). (Fall 2003, 310, on campus, required) • I use AOL for my instant messaging. Since you did not have an AOL account, I simply never took the time to set up another. I have too many e-mails and usernames as it is; I don’t need one more (I know it’s silly.) (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) • Not universal! I have an AOL IM account but the instructor did not. Needed to subscribe to your account.(Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  21. Negative Aspects in Using IM (6) • Environmental restrictions • I really wanted to participate but I couldn’t really because I don’t have administrative privilege to install Yahoo IM on school computers. I did register with Yahoo, but I could not install. I will try to see I could try on a different computer. 9 • (Fall 2003, 310, on campus, required) • I could not install Yahoo IM on School’s computers. (Summer 2003, 310, on campus, not required) • The only problem I had with IM was, in school none of the labs except 1 (in Bolton Hall) allows you to use IM, so it was hard to use it if I spent more time in school. (Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) • I do not do IM during the school year because I don’t have a computer and most campus labs have it disabled. (Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  22. Negative Aspects in Using IM (7) • Usability and interface issues • I was not used to using Yahoo instant messenger. It took me time to figure out the functions involved. (Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) • I hate remembering the screen-names. (Fall 2003, 310, on campus, required) • No spell checking, sometimes my fingers crossed up. (Fall 2003, 310, online, required) • The noise it makes when a message pops up. (Fall 2003, 310, on campus, required) • Adding people to lists was not easy (Summer 2003, 310, on campus, not required) • If delayed my start and restart and yahoo wanted to load a mess of stuff I didn’t want. (Fall 2003, 240, on campus, required) • I had never used IM before, so it took me awhile to figure out how to use it effectively. The time lag made me feel like I was behind the rest of the class. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) • I also was confused about assigning names. (Fall 2003, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  23. Negative Aspects in Using IM (8) • The next comments are not necessarily negative, but they are ironic in the fact that some students felt “uncomfortable” in using IM with an instructor, despite all its advantages. • It is weird IMing my professor. (Fall 2003, 310, on campus, required) • It was also very odd to have a professor on my buddy list because I mainly use IM programs for personal and not academic communication. Sometimes, it was odd putting silly away messages regarding my friends when I knew that Dr. Jeong could read them. (Fall 2002, 310, on campus, not required) • At first I thought this is weird. But then after I talked to you a few times I felt like if I went to your office and you could help me right away. (Fall 2004, 310, online, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  24. Resistance/Refusal to Use IM (1) • Do-it-myself students • I did not participate via IM for several reasons. First of all, I never really felt the need. Except for one or two minor issues, I found everything I needed to know via the Web or the textbooks. Perhaps it is simply my personality, but I prefer to try and solve problems on my own. (Summer 2003, 891, online, not required) • I don’t really expect immediate responses and I am usually able to organize my work so that I can use WebCT Discussion List for most questions. (Summer 2003, 891, online, not required) • I did not participate in the IM part of this class because I felt that I did not have any questions or comments during the course. (Fall 2003, 240, on campus, required) • My only potential problem is that IM use is required. If I were a student that did nor require assistance, and who could get through everything smoothly, I may have had some problem with being required to participate via IM. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) • I didn’t participate because I didn’t have any questions to ask. (Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  25. Resistance/Refusal to Use IM (2) • Simply not enough time • I did not use IM as often as I could have. Working full time, reading the materials, doing the projects, and participating in the Discussion Groups, many of my questions were answered. (Summer 2003, 891, online, not required) • I regret I did not use IM in this class. Much of my internet access was done during down time at my full-time or part-time job, and neither one allows me to add an instant messaging service (or any other outside program) to my networked computer. (Fall 2003, 891, online, required) • I have some issues with my finances at UWM and this keeps my schedule full. I have classes every day of the week (mornings) and I work every night. I also work weekends (Sundays) and this leaves very little time for Instant Messaging on the computer. (Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  26. Resistance/Refusal to Use IM (3) • Email and fact-to-face interviews are good enough • I really didn’t see much that I could do with IM that I couldn’t do with email, with the exception of getting very specific technical help from the professor that required back-and-forth in real time to see if the problem was being resolved. (Summer 2003, 891, online, not required) • In addition, the few times I had questions for you via email, you responded very quickly, and I did not have any urgent questions justifying an IM rather than an email. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) • While I have used it previously to great success in personal communications, the few time I have used it in an academic setting, I have been unsatisfied and quickly switched to email communication. (Summer 2003, 891, online, not required) • The reason I used email most instead of IM was because my questions were too big. (Fall 2003, 240, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  27. Resistance/Refusal to Use IM (4) • Lack of home computer • It’s a useful tool but [you] should not grade people on how much they use it, because some people may not have a computer, or even some people do not have questions so IMing has little or no purpose. (Spring 2004, 310, on campus, required) • Not every student has a computer or knows how to use IM. (Fall 2004, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  28. Discussion (1) • The rating on IM interaction may depend on individual instructors’ availability and willingness to be available. Students are aware of this aspect as well. • Even in a traditional classroom setting IM would be useful. However, most professors are probably not so willing to be available as often as are you. It would depend greatly on the topic and the instructor. (Spring 2003, 891, online, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  29. Discussion (2) • However, apparently IM has many positive aspects if used in educational settings, in both on site and online course. Despite the fact that there are some resistances against using IM in classes, many cheer this new method of communication in educational settings. • I think all teachers should be required to have IM available along with their class hours. It doesn't make sense to come to campus to ask a question about an assignment length, or verify a piece of information. I think the IM service is a valuable educational tool. (Fall 2004, 310, on campus, required) • I'm hopeful that the use of IM will expand into the future, as the use of email has. Communication is an essential element to instruction. (Fall 2004, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  30. Conclusion (1) • This research proved by stories from students directly that IM has a great benefit in class settings. • However, since there is known resistance in using IM, it is important to it clear to students beforehand that IM is for better communication with instructors. • As more instructors adopt IM in their classes, the instructors’ reactions would be worthwhile to investigate in future studies. ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

  31. Conclusion (2) • I'm glad that a professor has started using this type of communication. In my day to day life IM is one of my main modes of communicating with people. It's very easy and cuts through the wait time and/or traveling to call, email, or visit during office hours. Especially for simple questions like how many words, or when this is due. I hope that more professors catch on to this way of communicating. (Fall 2004, 310, on campus, required) ALISE 2006 - Wooseob Jeong

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