Due to students’ growing networking needs, educational institutions are increasingly looking for tools to bolster peer communication and information exchange. These tools, furthermore, need to facilitate students’ adaptation to the new academic culture and support their academic acculturation. This study proposes to integrate the social networking site Facebook into the learning programme, providing students with a low-threshold online environment where they can share ideas , experiences and information while creating social bonds. Data from two case studies show that students experience various challenges associated with academic acculturation and try to overcome them by consulting their peers via Facebook. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that through social networking, careful assignment design and tutor support, students are encouraged to acculturate and become active, responsible learners.
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Cited by (6)
Cited by six other publications
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2024. International doctoral students’ academic socialisation in China: A social network analysis. Research Papers in Education 39:2 ► pp. 301 ff.
Peeters, Ward & Jo Mynard
2023. Supporting self-regulated language learning skills online: awareness raising approaches for computer-supported collaboration. Language Awareness 32:1 ► pp. 132 ff.
Saqr, Mohammed, Ward Peeters & Olga Viberg
2021. The relational, co-temporal, contemporaneous, and longitudinal dynamics of self-regulation for academic writing. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning 16:1
Peeters, Ward
2018. Applying the networking power of Web 2.0 to the foreign language classroom: a taxonomy of the online peer interaction process. Computer Assisted Language Learning 31:8 ► pp. 905 ff.
Peeters, Ward
2019. The peer interaction process on Facebook: a social network analysis of learners’ online conversations. Education and Information Technologies 24:5 ► pp. 3177 ff.
Yang, Chen
2018. US-based social media use and American life: A study of Chinese students’ acculturation and adaptation in America. Global Media and China 3:2 ► pp. 75 ff.
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