Social networks in education: Estimates and expectations of students

The paper, in theoretic terms deals with the phenomena of social networks and points out the possibility of their use as a technology innovation in university teaching. The central part of the empiric relations of the paper, them being the main purpose of this research, is the orientation of the students of teacher training faculties in Serbia towards social networks and their use in university teaching. The research was performed in the academic year 2012/13 on an appropriate and stratified sample of 208 students of the first and fourth year of Bachelor Academic studies and students of Master studies of teacher training faculties in Belgrade, Užice and Vranje. Besides the student preference of the use of social networks in education, the variables of the research are the year of studies and their attitude towards the use of social networks in teaching. The data was gathered through the survey and scaling techniques, and processed by the SPSS software package. The instruments used were a questionnaire and the Likert scale. Descriptive method was used to interpret the acquired data. The result of the research shows that the students of teacher training faculties have different opinions towards the use of social networks, and they have different attitudes towards the use of social networks in university teaching. One half of the surveyed students support and advocate this technology innovation, while the other half is against it or has no attitude whatsoever on the matter, which indicates that this phenomenon must be addressed with significantly more attention.