Facebook-supplemented instruction benefited medium-skilled (50-80%) students most, while the highest-ability students improved less than traditionally taught peers¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 2014 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In the middle 50-80% subsets the Experiment Group outperformed the Control group by a considerable margin. → Shams 2014 q2 i? The Experiment group's 80-90% subset improved only 2.48% versus 6.29% for the Control group's counterpart subset. → Shams 2014 (2)

Evidence¶

Shams 2014¶

Shaila Shams. (2014). Efficacy of Online Social Networks on Language Teaching: A Bangladeshi Perspective. The IAFOR Journal of Education, Volume II - Issue II - Summer 2014. https://iafor.org/journal

q2 · i? · causal · r1

Subset analysis comparing percentage improvement within diagnostic-score bands across the two groups (Figures 3-5). The Experiment group's 50-60% and 60-70% subsets improved 20.85% and 7.22% versus 7.88% and 7.81% for Control; descriptive percentages only.

"Conversely the most surprising results were demonstrated by the students of the middle “50-80%” subset. Where the general norm seemed to be that the Experiment Group outperformed the Control group by a considerable margin."

Shams 2014 (2)¶

Shaila Shams. (2014). Efficacy of Online Social Networks on Language Teaching: A Bangladeshi Perspective. The IAFOR Journal of Education, Volume II - Issue II - Summer 2014. https://iafor.org/journal

q2 · i? · causal · r1

Subset comparison for the highest-ability band in the same quasi-experiment. The author attributes the smaller Facebook-group gain to reduced class contact time (lectures shortened by 30 minutes) and to high-skilled students profiting more from technically focused traditional teaching.

"The “80-90%” subset of the Experiment group demonstrated only 2.48% improvement compared to a 6.29% improvement shown by their counterpart subset in the Control group."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The traditionally taught Control group outperformed the Facebook group on the pretest, entering the semester with higher English aptitude — related
• Tertiary EFL students whose instruction was supplemented with Facebook tasks showed almost double the average test improvement of a traditionally taught comparison group over one semester — related
• The 70-80% ability subset was the only out-of-trend result, with a sudden improvement spike in the Facebook group and uniformly positive course ratings — related
• The experimental and control groups did not differ significantly in writing scores at pre-test, supporting attribution of post-test differences to the instructional methods — related