Friending Instructors or Not? Student-Instructor’s Social Interaction on Cyberspace

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session and Reception
  In Interactive Paper Session: Instructional and Developmental Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Students and instructors nowadays can interact with each other via various communicative platforms and social network sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, or LinkedIn. This survey study attempts to explore college students’ decisions of friending their instructors on online social media and to examine factors that can help explain students’ decisions of socially connecting with their instructors on cyberspace. Our findings suggested that individuals who are commonly active on social network sites have a tendency to stay close with their instructors on cyberspace socially. We also found that once the professional relationship between students and instructors ends, students are more likely to socially connect with their instructors online. These findings can be meaningful to future studies and provide new directions for research on student-instructor relationship and computer-mediated communication.

Authors

• Ruoxu Wang, The Pennsylvania State University

• Nan Yu, North Dakota State U