ISSN:
1309-517X
Journal Name:
CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Volume:
11
Issue:
1
Pages From:
79
To:
100
Date:
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Keywords:
WhatsApp, instant messaging, tenth grade, teaching/learning chemistry and biology
Abstract:
The aim of the study is to assess the extent to which WhatsApp Instant Messaging is used
to teach chemistry and biology to the tenth-grade students. A mixed approach was used,
whereby the authors drew on the content analysis model to analyze quantitative data. The
sample consisted of 28 Palestinian tenth-grade students and their teachers, who used
WhatsApp Instant Messaging for four months (the Spring semester of 2019). The collected
data was divided into four categories: the nature of the message (instructional,
organizational, or social); the form of the message (texts, pictures/graphs, voice recordings,
videos, or link-sharing); the direction of communication flow (from a teacher to a student,
from a student to a teacher, from a student to a student, or from a teacher to a teacher);
and knowledge exchange. Our findings suggest that WhatsApp is used more for non instructional purposes– particularly socialization– yet the portion of instruction-related
messages was somehow enough to predict more effective future use of the application for
teaching/learning purposes.
