DEA1500 Community

Project website: http://dea1500.xyz

This study investigates how to refine Social Media Tools (SNTs) and guidelines based on feedback from 126 students in a environmental psychology course in a university to improve their learning community engagement. The authors developed a photo-sharing web application for students to post course related materials weekly and conducted surveys to collect their opinions on improving engagement in the learning community by changing the app design and guidelines every 3 weeks during the semester of the study. Their behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and social engagement were also measured via the surveys. After the semester, twelve students were interviewed on how the app and guidelines design change based on their opinions influenced their engagement. With successive iterations, we found that cognitive and emotional engagement were improved but behavioral and social engagement were not changed during the study. Interview results further explained how the design changes influenced these multi-faceted engagement changes. These findings suggest that soliciting students’ input into SNT apps and guidelines design can benefit their cognitive and emotional engagement in a learning community.