Connecting with Instructors on Facebook: Why and Why Not

Abstract

The following thesis examined the student-instructor connection on social network sites (SNS). Facebook is the most popular SNS and it covers a range of users include both students and instructors. On Facebook, some students are willing to connect with their instructors whereas others are not. This study sought to accomplish two major goals: 1) to explore students' decisions of connecting with instructors on Facebook from various school experiences; 2) to examine if college students' self-disclosure, frequency of updates, information sensitivity, and privacy concern would predict their decisions of connecting with instructors on Facebook. The study found that college students rarely connect with instructors on Facebook. If they connected with instructors on Facebook, they prefer to connect with past instructors rather than current instructors. The study also found that both self-disclosure and frequency of updates have significant impacts students' decisions of connection.