Abstract
DETERMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRACTICE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS AND LEARNING STYLES
Social networking, which is being used by people of all ages today, is the most widespread Web 2.0 technology. It is important in information and communication technologies for providing individuals with environments to express themselves efficiently and share ideas. Communication and interaction features of social networking offer opportunities in a virtual environment for teaching and learning process in both individual and group studies. In the process of individualizing instruction and making instruction more effective, consideration of individual differences like learning styles is an important factor supporting effective, productive and attractive learning. This study aims to point out the relationship between learning styles that suggest that learning process varies from individual to individual and individuals’ practice of social networks that provide individualized information sharing opportunities. For this purpose, data was collected via a social networking questionnaire and learning styles index developed by Felder and Solomon, from 318 undergraduates studying at Manisa Celal Bayar University in 2012-2013 academic year. According to the results, there is a medium level, positive and meaningful relationship between the average scores in “active” score of the learning styles index and the items in the social networking questionnaire (r= .329, p<.001). Furthermore, there is a low level positive relationship between the average scores in “visual” score of the index and average scores of questionnaire items related to visual domain (r= .172, p< .001). There were no meaningful relationships for the other domains. This study suggests a relationship between learning styles and social networking. Further studies are recommended with various learning style scales and different participants in order to clarify this relationship.
Keywords
Social Networks, Learning Styles, Correlation.
