Students Behaviour on Social Media Sties A Data Mining Approach

Abstract Online social networking has become an inevitable part of a human society. As more students have now spent a great extent of their time participating in online social network sites it could become a valuable tool to enhance student learning. !n order to implement online social network in learning effectively student individual differences in terms of learning styles should be taken into considerations. "his paper presents the preliminary findings from a study of students learning styles and their interactions on an online social network site the relationships between the two and discussions on how teachers could use students popular online social network sites to promote their learning. !n this paper surveys on social network site use and the !ndex of #earning Styles !#S were administered to $%& tertiary students from five different faculties. "he analysis focuses on the relationships between student learning styles and their online social network uses. "he results are expected to help assisting instructors on how to effectively plan the use of social network to enhance their students learning. I. INTRODUCTION Using social networks is an integrated component of the lives of many st dents. These sites have vario s effects on their life styles especially in their academic performance and the d ration of their st dies. The rapid growth of information and comm nication technology has made significant impacts on people lives. The increasing significance of its se in ed cation has !een noted !y teachers" ed cators" ed cational instit tions worldwide. The introd ction of online social network sites opens p opport nities for today#s learners to se different ways to learn. Recent years have witnessed the proliferation of social media and the s ccess of many social we!sites" incl ding $lickr" %o T !e" $ace!ook" Twitter" etc." which drastically increased the vol me of comm nity&shared media reso rces" incl ding images and videos. These we!sites allow sers not only to create and share media data ! t also to rate and annotate them. Th s lots of meta&data" s ch as ser&provided tags" comments" geo&tags" capt re time and '(I$ information" associated to m ltimedia reso rces" are availa!le in the social media we!sites. On the one hand" the rapid increase of social media data makes many related applications challenging" s ch as categori)ation" recommendation and search. On the other hand" the rich information cl es associated with the data also offer s opport nities to attack many well&recogni)ed diffic lties enco ntered in m ltimedia analysis and nderstanding" e.g." ins fficiency of la!elled data for semantic learning. The m ltimedia research comm nity has widely recogni)ed the importance of learning effective models for nderstanding" organi)ation" and access ! t has failed to make rapid progress d e to the ins fficiency of la!elled data" which typically comes from sers in an interactive la!or&intensive man al process. In order to red ce this man al effort" many semi&s pervised learning or active learning approaches have !een proposed. Nevertheless" there is still a need to man ally annotate a large set of images or videos to !ootstrap and steer the training. The rich information cl es associated with the m ltimedia data in the social media we!sites offer a way o t. If we can learn the models for semantic concepts effectively from ser&shared data !y sing their associated meta&te*t as training la!els" or if we can infer the semantic concepts of the m ltimedia data directly from the data in the Internet" man al efforts in m ltimedia annotation can !e red ced. Conse+ ently" semantic&!ased m ltimedia retrieval can !enefit m ch from the comm nity& contri! ted reso rce. There is" however" a pro!lem in sing the associated meta&information as training la!els, they are often very noisy. Th s how to remove the noise in the training la!els or how to handle the noise in the learning process are rgent research topics. II. '-.' O$ U.'

A. Online Social Network in Education -t the semantic level" the key information we need for social media data is the so&called /0#s and 12" i.e." who" where" when" what" why and how. -s why and how tend to !e a!stract" diffic lt and may not !e relevant to most social media applications" a+ atic tools for analysing and mining the social media sho ld help to nderstand the first 30#s" namely" who" where" when and what. The aforementioned challenges are mostly related to the 4what5 pro!lem. $or the 4who5 iss e" the key techni+ es are face detection and recognition" which have !een e*tensively st died in comp ter vision research. 6esides the 4what5 pro!lem" 4where5 and 4when5 iss es are also hot topics in m ltimedia research comm nity" that is" to mining the '(I$ and geo tag information for m ltimedia applications. 6esides modelling media items 7e.g. an image or a video8" the social media sites are providing with incredi!le reso rces to model sers" thro gh the aggregation of their traces on social media sites 7e.g. the images they pload" the tags they se" the people whose content they comment on8. .o in addition to model m ltimedia data only" how to model people#s !ehaviors or events is also important. 9ivotal to many tasks in relation to social media mining and research is the availa!ility of s fficiently large dataset and its corresponding gro nd tr th.

C rrently availa!le datasets for m ltimedia research are either too small" too specific" or witho t gro nd tr th. 0hile it is relatively easy to crawl and store a h ge amo nt of data" the creation of gro nd&tr th necessary to systematically train" test" and eval ate the performance of vario s algorithms and systems is a ma:or pro!lem. $or this reason" more and more research gro ps are individ ally p tting efforts into the creation of s ch corp s in order to carry o t research on social media dataset" s ch as the ;IR$lickr and NU.&0ID'. Recently" more and more research efforts have !een dedicated to the aforementioned challenges and opport nities. Therefore" we edit this special iss e named .ocial ;edia ;ining and .earch. The goals of this special foc s on threefold, 718 introd ce novel research in learning from reso rces in the Internet< 7=8 s rvey on the progress of this area in the past years< 7>8 disc ss new applications !ased on the newly learned models. Online social network infl ences several aspects of lives in the information and comm nication age as a res lt of the conveniences and speed in transactions. ?eading online social network sites can !e accessed thro gh a variety of modern devices" for instance" laptops" ta!lets" and mo!ile phones in addition to traditional desktop comp ters. Online social network sites" e.g." $ace!ook" ;yspace" @oogleA" or 2i/" respond to the need for comm nication. Therefore" these sites are !ro ght to se for different p rposes incl ding ed cation as this can enhance the ! ilding of learning network !ased on the fact that st dents already se online social network" and this co ld !e sed to create the academic disc ssions and criti+ es among tertiary st dents sing the sites# disc ssion tools .This st dy emphasi)ed the se of online social network in terms of disc ssion tools" which co ld facilitate !lended learning !etween classroom lesson and disc ssions on online social network. B. Learning Styles .t dents preferred ways of learning are referred to as learning style that is descri!ed as an individ al#s inherited fo ndation" partic lar past life and the demands of the present environment that emphasi)es some learning a!ilities over others and a ha!it al and distinct mode of ac+ iring knowledge. There are several methods to categori)e ?earning .tyles Inventories" namely" environment" information processing" sensory and personality. .ome of the widely known models and instr ments incl de the ;yers&6riggs Type Indicator" which classifies people according to their preferences on fo r scales derived from B ng#s Theory of 9sychological Types< the Col!#s '*periential ?earning ;odel which classifies st dents according to the '*periential ?earning Theory< and the D-RC modalities" which classify learners into Dis al" - ral" ReadEwrite" and Cinaesthetic sensory modalities that are sed for learning information.

This st dy meas red st dents# learning styles !ased on the $elder&.ilverman ;odel which classifies st dents as fitting into one of the following fo r learning style dimensions, .ensing learners 7concrete" practical" oriented towards facts and proced res8 or int itive learners 7concept al" innovative" oriented towards theories and meanings8< Dis al learners 7prefer vis al representations of presented material F pict res" diagrams" flow charts8 or ver!al learners 7prefer written and spoken e*planations8< The instr ment sed was the Inde* of ?earning .tylesG + estionnaire. The Inde* of ?earning .tylesG 7I?.8 is a forty&fo r&item forced&choice instr ment developed in 1HH1 !y Richard $elder and 6ar!ara .olomon to assess preferences on the fo r scales of the $elder&.ilverman model. C. Methods - total of >IH tertiary st dents 7=/> female and 1=J male st dents8 from five different fac lties" namely" ed cation" science" h manities and social sciences" management sciences and technology" were asked to fill o t !oth + estionnaires of Inde* of ?earning .tyles 7I?.8 and the s rvey of online social network se which was developed !y the researcher. The I?. was translated into Thai for se in Thailand sing !ack& translation techni+ e they had also !een slightly modified after the pretest to s it the Thai socioc lt ral conte*t. The associations !etween st dentsK learning styles and their online social network se were investigated !y analysing the data sing simple correlation 7r8 to descri!e the !ivariate association !etween the types of learning styles categori)ed in the I?. and the scales of the online network se instr ment. D. Findings The descriptive res lts reveal that almost all of the st dents participated in this st dy se online social network which left only fo r st dents o t of >IH or a!o t 1.1L who reported not sing any of the online social network sites. The st dy also fo nd o t that JM.JL of those who se the online social network sites are aware of the privacy settings provided !y the sites and have sed them" while >H.3L of the participants do not se any privacy settings on the social network sites. The rest of the res lts are presented in the following ta!les. Ta!le 1. 9ercentage of social network sites sers Social 'etwork Sites $ace!ook @oogleA 2i/ Others

' ($%) >IM =13 N> J1

*ercentage of responses /M.N =H.3 11.3 N.3

*ercentage of cases HN.3 /J.H ==.1 1J.=

Ta!le 1 ill strates online social network sites sers. The res lts from the m lti&response scale reveals that the

ma:ority of the st dents are $ace!ook sers 7/M.NL of responses and HN.3L of the participants8 following !y @oogleA 7=H.3L of responses and /J.HL of the participants8" and 2i/ 711.3L of responses and ==.1L of the participants8 while N.3L of responses or 1J.=L of the st dents participating in the s rvey reported that they sed other online social network sites" e.g." Twitter" ;yspace" Tagged and $riendster. Ta!le = shows online social network interactions !y st dents. ;ean scores for all scales of the online social network se s rvey instr ment indicate that the interactions employed !y st dents are at the moderate level e*cept for three feat res namely" writing notes and !logs" reading notes and !logs" and creating pages. The mean scores for these two scales indicate the low level of social network interactions. Ta!le =. ;ean score for st dents# online social network interactions +nline social network interactions Mean S.D.

Ta!le >. 9ercentages of st dents# learning style preferences #earning 1. =. >. 3. -ctiveEReflective -ctive Reflective .ensingEInt itive .ensing Int itive Dis alEDer!al Dis al Der!al .e+ entialE@lo!al .e+ ential @lo!al 'o. of students ' ( $%& >>/ 33 =H> NJ >13 J/ =/M 1=H *ercentage of responses NN.3 11.J II.> ==.I N=.N 1I.= JJ.M >3.M

9rofile post and comment 1. Own profile Update stat s >.IM Comment on a post >./I =. Other#s profiles 9ost on others# profiles >.33 Comment on a post >.>I >. Notes or !logs 0rite own notesE!logs =.I3 Read notesE!logs written !y others =.H1 3. @ro ps Create own gro ps >.=I Boin gro ps created !y others >.JJ /. 9ages Create a page =.I= $ollow pages created !y others >.II J. Chats O ;essages Chat O send messages thro gh social network sites >.HH Use other chat programs or messengers >.=N I. $or ms .tart a thread andEor e*press opinions in a disc ssion for m >.1> Read a disc ssion thread written and commented !y others >.1/

M.1= M.MN M.MN M.1M M.=M M.=1 M.=J M.11 M.>1 M.1I M.M= M.>> M.=M M.1H

The percentages of st dents# learning style preferences presented in Ta!le > ill strate each aspect of the learning style categories descri!ed in the I?.. The res lts reveal that for the -ctiveEReflective aspect" the ma:ority of st dents 7NN.3L8 were categori)ed as -ctive learners< for the .ensingEInt itive aspect" the ma:ority 7II.>L8 was sensing learners< for the Dis alEDer!al aspect" the ma:ority 7N=.NL8 was Dis al learners< and for the .e+ entialE@lo!al aspect" the ma:ority of st dents 7JJ.ML8 were se+ encing learners. The relationships !etween learning styles and st dents# se of social network are presented in Ta!le 3. Ta!le 3. .imple correlation coefficients for st dents# learning styles in association with the se of social network interaction

#earning Style *references

Active, Sensing, -eflective !ntuitive

.isual, .erbal

Se/uential ,0lobal

*rofile post and comment 1. Own profile Update stat s Comment on a post =. Other#s profile 9ost on others# profiles Comment on a post >. Notes or !logs 0rite own notesE!logs Read notesE!logs written !y others

M.MI M.MJ M.MI M.MI M.M/ M.M3

M.MM M.3N M.M1 M.1N M.M> M.3J

M.M/ M.MM M.M= M.MN M.M1 M.MM

M.M3 M.M1 M.M> M.M> M.M1 M.M1

3. @ro ps Create own gro ps M.M3 Boin gro ps created !y others M.11P /. 9ages Create a page M.MJ $ollow pages created !y others M.1NPP J. Chats O ;essages Chat O send messages thro gh social M.1JPP I. Network sites Use other chat M.MM programs or messengers N. $or ms .tart a thread andEor M.1IPP e*press opinions in a disc ssion for m Read a disc ssion M.13PP thread written and commented !y others

M.MN M.1M M.MI M.M/

M.M> M.MI M.M> M.M=

M.M= M.M1 M.M1 M.M1

M.11P M.M1

M.M= M.MJ

M.M1 M.MH

M.M1

M.MI

M.M3

M.MM

M.M>

M.M3

online social network sites sed !y tertiary st dents" their online social network interactions" and their learning styles preferences as well as the associations e*isting !etween st dents# learning styles and some online social network ses. The descriptive res lts indicate that the st dents# most pop lar online social network site is $ace!ook and they interact with others thro gh the online social network sites at the moderate level. This s ggests the possi!ility for teachers to !lend the traditional classroom learning with the online social network activities" e.g." disc ssions and knowledge shares. Considering the learning styles" most st dents are categori)ed as -ctive" .ensing" Dis al" and .e+ encing learners. This information sho ld !e considered in planning the learning activities thro gh the online social network" e.g." Dis al learners prefer diagrams" graphs and charts to ver!ally written descriptions of information in process. The relationships e*ist !etween some aspects of learning styles and the se of social network interaction co ld !e sed for planning disc ssion activities for the !lended learning as well. $or instance" !eing -ctive or Reflective learners infl ences how the st dents wo ld se chat and messaging feat res on the social network sites and how they wo ld follow the learning page to retrieve learning information. To concl de" the analysis res lts s ggest the possi!ilities and tendencies for the f t re of !lended learning !etween traditional classrooms and learning activities on the online social network. 2owever" there is a ca tion s ggested !y a descriptive finding that >H.3L of st dents who se the online social network are not aware of and do not apply any privacy settings on their social network acco nts and the advice on protecting their privacy online sho ld !e provided !efore p tting this !lended learning idea to practice. In the last decades the new technological developments in the field of information and comm nication technologies have changed the way companies" managers and the individ als comm nicate. 0e have seen great leaps in the methods of comm nication !etween individ als as well as new methods of interaction have arisen. .o" new social networks have !een developed in the online environment. In the last decade a new mean of comm nication has come to life and has greatly changed the life of many individ als and of many organi)ations, the online social network. 0e have presented in this paper the concept of online social network" the evol tion of this tool and its advantages and disadvantages for sing it in the ! siness and real world. 0e have developed a + antitative marketing research in order to nderstand the main reasons for sing O.N" the main online sites known !y high school st dents and the main activities ndertaken !y them when accessing s ch an acco nt. The research was developed in high schools from .i!i " .ala: and .at ;are Co nties. 0e can s mmari)e the res lts as follows,

The simple correlation presented in Ta!le 3 indicates that there are si* significant relationships !etween st dents# learning style aspects represented !y the I?. and the scales from the online social network s rvey. The res lts indicate that the -ctiveEReflective aspect has the relationships with five scales of the online social network se namely" $ollow pages created !y others" Chat O send messages thro gh social network sites" .tart a thread andEor e*press opinions in a disc ssion for m" and Read a disc ssion thread written and commented !y others< a relationship is also fo nd !etween the other .ensingE Int itive aspect and Chat O send messages thro gh social network sites .cale. The present st dy has shown a negative relation !etween sage of .N.s7social networks on st dents8 and @9- which is similar to res lts from other st dies in this conte*ts. 2owever" some other st dies have shown that sing face !ook has no effect on st dents# academic performance. .ince sing of these networks can red ce the 9eriod of st dy" it co ld negatively affect on academic performance of st dents. In addition mem!ers of the social networks who had often sed them at night have not eno gh rest" res lting in daytime fatig e d e to sleep disr ption" there!y decrease st dents# academic performance. III. DI.CU..ION -ND CONC?U.ION

These st dy findings ill strate the information a!o t the

are several open iss es worth f rther st dy. H/L of the respondents have an online social networking site acco nt. The most recogni)ed online social networking sites are $ace!ook and @oogleA. The preferred connection method to an O.N acco nt is the personal comp ter and the laptop. The main assessment criteria for accepting a connection is, the person is known !y the acco nt owner" followed !y the n m!er of common friends. The main activities that the st dents do when connected to their O.N acco nt are, comm nicate with friends and post photos. The average n m!er of connections that an ser has is more than /MM. - message from a friend E ac+ aintance infl ences the ser in a strong and average manner. The advertising campaigns have infl enced the high school st dents and the same sers state that they se the O.N to inform themselves a!o t prod cts E services or events and some of them ! y prod cts or services. -s we can see the respondents are vario s and offer s an interesting view in the minds of high school st dents that own an online social networking site acco nt. This tool can !e sed !y managers and marketing specialists alike to !etter develop their marketing or comm nication strategy. 0e hope that this research can !e a step forward in nderstanding how to improve the via!ility of the O.N in the ! siness world. Of co rse o r research is only a transversal one and f rther st dies in this field in a longit dinal manner can !e developed in order to nderstand the evol tion of the online social networking phenomenon over time and se its res lts in ! siness strategies. ID. $URT2'R C2-??'N@'. -ND DIR'CTION. 0hen tili)ing the social media as training data to mine new knowledge or learn model" how to remove the noise in the tags and comments or how to handle the noise in the learning process is an rgent iss e to tackle< .ocial media sites provide incredi!le reso rces to model sers" thro gh the aggregation of their traces on social media sites. Th s !esides modelling the m ltimedia data itself" how to model people#s !ehavio rs or events is val a!le for social media mining and nderstanding< Different tags have different representativeness to certain images" while most of the e*isting works deal them e+ ally. Th s how to meas re the tag representativeness or relevant to the given image and how to rank tags for each image is also important< The scala!ility of the techni+ es for social media mining and search in !illion&scale collections" especially when the content of interest 7o!:ect" landmark" etc.8 only occ rs in a small portion of the images or videos< and 2ow to nify the individ al efforts to create a nified we!&scale repository for e*perimental eval ation of newly proposed techni+ es. $ig. = the research topics in social media mining and search" as well as the related applications

.ocial media" s ch as photos" videos" tags" comments and ser relations have proved a val a!le reso rce for m ltimedia information mining" search and f rther developing val a!le applications. 0e s mmari)e the research topics in social media mining and search" as well as the related applications" in $ig. 1. C rrent a lot of the effort was devoted to research on annotation" tagging" classification" ranking" retrieval" tag recommendation" geo&tag !ased applications and social media information network" while the papers in this special iss e are all fell into these topics. In this promising research area" there

H.

Di;icco B" ;illen DR" et al. 7=MMN8. ;otivations for social networking at work" -C;.

1M. 1M. $arahani 2-" Ca)emi U" et al. 7=M118. Q'*amining mental health indices in st dents sing $ace!ook in Iran.Q 9rocedia&.ocial and 6ehavioral .ciences =N, N11&N13. 11. Boinson -N 7=MMN8. ?ooking at" looking p or keeping p with peopleR, motives and se of face!ook" -C;. 1=. 1=. B nco R 7=M1=8. QToo m ch face and not eno gh !ooks, The relationship !etween m ltiple indices of $ace!ook se and academic performance.Q Comp ters in 2 man 6ehavior =N, 1NIF1HN. R'$'R'NC'. 1. Office of the National 'd cation" National 'd cation -ct 6.'. =/3= 71HHH8" 6angkok, Office of the National 'd cation" =MM>. C. 2. T and ;. .. NcIsaac" QThe Relationship of .ocial 9resence and Interaction in Online Classes"Q he A!erican "ournal o# Distance Education$ vol. 1J" no. >" pp. 1>1&1/M" =MM=. C. R therford" QUsing online social media to s pport preservice st dents enga gement"Q ME%LO "ournal o# Online Learning and eaching$ vol. J" no. 3" pp. IM>&I11" =M1M. .. 2amid" B. 0aycott" .. C rnia and .. Chang" QThe Use of Online .ocial Networking for 2igher 'd cation from -n -ctivity Theory 9erspective"Q in &AC'S ()*) &roceedings" =M1M. B. '. 2 ghes" QThe rise of social media in online ed cation, 2ow is it changing c rric laR"Q 13 $e!r ary =M11. SOnlineT. .. C pp swamy" QThe impact of social networking we!sites on the ed cation of yo th"Q 'nternational "ournal o# +irtual Co!!unities and Social Networking$ vol. =" no. 1" pp. JI&IH" =M1M. -!ramson @ and C perman ;" 'ds. 7=MM18. .ocial games in a social network. 9hysical Review '" -9.. 6oyd D" 'd. 7=MMI8. 0hy yo th social network sites, The role of networked p !lics in teenage social life. The Bohn D. and Catherine T. ;ac-rth r $o ndation .eries on Digital ;edia and ?earning" ;IT 9ress.

=.

>.

3.

/.

J.

I. N. N.