Methodology of Research
Any judgmental critic of a research paper will expect analytical and logical reasoning from the writer to establish the research and provide proper description of methodology, designing, observation and analysis of the information and results. The writer must utilize all these to conclude his research topic and establish a fact. The introduction and literature review part of the paper contains logical analysis focusing the purpose of the research and justifies the reasoning to fill in the gap of logic (Mathews, 2014). On the other hand, it also reasons the methodology adopted by the researcher to perform the research analysis. Next step of a research paper is the methodology of research, where the author designs and explains the method of data collection and analysis method adopted by the researcher. After this comes the result of the analysis. In this part of the research paper, the author has to provide enough reasoning to support the methodology he has designed and used to conclude the results also, how the result is supporting the purpose of the research. Last section of a research paper is the conclusion and discussion, which is mostly dependent on the research and the publication of the paper. However, in this section, author discusses the consequences and findings in the specific field of study.
The critical review is done on the research article by S. Neier, L.T. Zayer termed as “Students’ perceptions and experiences of social media in higher education” in 2015. The paper describes the implementation of social media applications in educational institutes and the perception of tutees about this process. Implementation of online-learning and e-teaching methodologies has been gaining popularity in different countries (Neier & Zayer, 2015). The process is easy and a superfast way to communicate with every student and provides a better platform for them to focus on exactly what they want to study and how. However, some also do not prefer this process because implementation of social media tools like “Facebook” or “Twitter” can hamper the overall purpose of increasing the teaching quality of the institution (Neier & Zayer, 2015). As per the researchers of this paper, until now all the researches regarding the implementation of social media tools for e learning focused on the benefits of these in pedagogical tools from the perspective of teachers and professors. However, this paper focuses on the perspective of the students about the implementation of social media tools in teaching methodology. It is important to make sure that the students have firm knowledge about the tool or are well trained before the tool is been implemented in the education system. This will be helpful for the students as well as the teachers too.
Results of the Analysis
The author has briefly described the problems, which will be addressed in the later parts of the article. The author clearly mentioned the perspective of the students regarding the implementation of e-learning methods in educational institutes. For a system to work properly it is important to understand the perspective of different users of the system. Like teachers and professors, students are the major ones who will be using the system. The research of this article also comprises the survey to the level of knowledge students have about different social networks and tools.
The researchers of this paper has used references of different research articles, which portrays the current trends of research regarding the implementation of e-learning methodology and the benefits of those. The researchers have provided enough evidences to support the area of research they are going to cover. The researchers have taken in account the perspective of the students as they are cover the major part of the user list of any social media tool for e-learning methods. The researchers have also provided enough references to support the gap in research they have chosen to work on.
The author has shown importance of implementing social media tools in the educational institutes have a huge reaction from the students like teachers and professors. The students cover a major portion in the list of users however; their perspective about e-learning and its benefits have never been credited for researches interconnected to the implementation of social network tools in teaching-learning field. On the other hand, the level of knowledge students do have regarding different social media tools like microblogging, pinning sites and video contents and sharing websites is another major aspect of this paper. The researchers have provided enough reasoning to support their topic of research. Being a primary user of the e-learning process a student must have enough knowledge to incorporate with e-learning methodology and avail the full advantage of the system.
The students are the primary user of the e-learning techniques implemented by any university. Their perspective regarding the implementation of social media tools is quite important for the success of the new system. In case, the students do not feel easy with the existing e-learning methodology then the system will crash and the university has to think otherwise. This is why, the perspective of the students play a vital role in implementing social media tools for e-learning methodology. The researchers have explained this fact very aptly in the research article.
Conclusion and Future Research
The researcher has provided logical reasoning for choosing such a topic for research. They have used references of different research articles to prove that earlier researches only focused on the perception of the teachers and professors and theoretical analysis of the success of different e-learning methods. However, no analysis has been done on the perception of the students, as they are the major users of such system. In case an e-learning method fails to gain popularity among students then the system can crash. This is why, analysis of the perspective of the students when social media tools are regarded as major tools for e-learning.
The researcher has provided a brief analysis on the research statement and methodology implemented to work on it. The researcher have focused on the analysis of the perspective of students for implementing social network tools in pedagogy process of any university. In addition to this, the researchers have discussed the two steps of data collection and analysis of it to conclude the research.
The introduction of this research paper is overall logical and focused on the problem discussed in the later part. The researchers have discussed the current trends of research in this field and sorted the research gap by focusing on the necessity of analyzing the perspective of the students for implementing social networking tools for online-learning and teaching methodology. The researchers have also briefly discussed the methodology they are going to implement to perform the research.
The researchers have used both quantitative and qualitative data for their research, which is best to establish their research goal. The goal of this research article is to analyze the perspective of students regarding the implementation of social media tools for e-learning methods. To analyze this the researchers used both thorough interview method for selective students and survey for every student of a university. The researchers have scrutinized students of different streams and departments based on their usage of different social media tools. This has helped them understand the utility of social media tools in different subjects better. In the survey paper, they have used different points for students to understand the utility better. For example, the researchers have used points based on their attendance in the classroom, their educational year, and gender of the student, race or ethnicity and the total household income of the family from where the student belongs (Neier & Zayer, 2015). The researchers have indicated that results of such survey brings out something unique. They found that students who belong to low household income background, likes to use social media tools more than others as these tools help them to cope up with the overall expenses.
Limitations
The researchers have conducted thorough interview on different students to understand their perspective. The researchers in this case have found that in most cases, the perspective of the trainers and teachers have echoed in the voices of the students. After collecting information from both the processes, the researchers have analyzed the data collected in the survey (Neier & Zayer, 2015). The researchers have found out that, tutees are keen about the use of social networking tools in the education system as this decreases the hard work of collecting information and focus on exactly those topics, which they want to learn about. On the other hand, it helps them connect with teachers and professors in a better way.
In case of survey done on different students, it is clear that, implementation of social networking tools in the education method is quite popular among students. It will be a good idea to attach a video content from YouTube with a lecture of study material will make the overall learning method. The researchers have analyzed the popularity of possible different social media tools individually. Analyzing the results of survey and interview results, it is clear that video content and sharing websites are quite popular among students and the popularity decreases for blogging and microblogging websites (Neier & Zayer, 2015).
However, the researchers have done survey and interview on students of a single university, which indicates that the choices are quite limited for them. It is the choice of the university administration to implement a typical set of social media tools like Facebook for communication and Twitter for microblogging and YouTube for video contents. While there are many choices for these with their own unique features helpful for education purpose. The researchers have found major popularity for video contents as these make e-learning and problem solving easy for every student. Video contents are best way of sharing teaching materials with students.
Conclusions drawn based on the research findings
The conclusion part of this article plays a major role in identifying the limitations of this research and indicating future researches on this field. The authors of this research has identified three major limitations besides the success of the research. As per the research students have a good knowledge about the implementation of social media tools in education. Like vide contents of the YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter for blogging, microblogging and communicating and LinkedIn as professional websites are best to incorporate with education system for betterment and effective e-learning methodology (Neier & Zayer, 2015). Students are aware of such technologies however, they are also very careful regarding e-learning and incorporating social media tools in the learning process as there is a tendency of being attached to an extensive level with such social media tools, which can hamper the overall teaching and learning methodology.
The researchers have indicated three major short comes of this research. The first one is they have conducted the survey and thorough interview on the students of same university (Neier & Zayer, 2015). This has a major effect on the overall research. Every university or institution have a set of social media tools used for their system and this will affect the perspective of the students studying there. For a neutral research, it is best to conduct a survey on different students of different university and institutions, as the choice of social media tool of an individual institute does not affect the overall analysis (Neier & Zayer, 2015) . The researchers have not considered the traits, lifestyle and the overall usage of social media by the student in their consideration. All these points have major impact on the perspective of the students. One who is not using a social media regularly will not be able to use such tools in a regular basis comfortably. In most of the cases the perspective of the teachers or trainers are reflected in the perspective of the students. This is why further research and thorough analysis is important in this field.
References
Mathews, S. (2014) Analyzing Research Articles: A Guide for Readers and Writers.
Neier, S., & Zayer, L. T. (2015). Students’ perceptions and experiences of social media in higher education. Journal of Marketing Education, 37(3), 133-143.