Social media and hidden curriculum: What do teacher-student interactions teach students?

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the views of the students about the learning outcomes ofteacher-student interactions on social media within the context of hidden curriculum. To this end, aquantitative associational research design was used in this study. Within the scope of the research, 2046students attending to the middle schools in Kahramanmaraş province were selected into the sample. Thedata of the study were collected using “Hidden curriculum on social media scale” which has a four-factorstructure consisting of 16 items developed by the researchers. The results of the analysis from the hiddencurriculum perspective revealed that as a result of interactions between the teacher and the student onsocial media, students learn some rules and values, know better about their teachers, restrain themselvesfrom sharing and communicating about certain topics, and gain confidence in communication.Furthermore, a statistically significant difference was found in favor of male students in terms of learningto restraint and gaining confidence in communication, whereas no significant difference was observed interms of learning rules and values, and knowing better about teachers. With regard to grade level, thelearning outcomes of especially the 5th graders through hidden curriculum on social media were found tobe significantly more than those of other students in upper classes of middle schools. However, all thestatistically significant differences were found to have small effect sizes. It was also found that the dailytime students spend on social media and the number of teachers added as friends to their accounts weresignificant predictors of students' their learning outcomes within the scope of hidden curriculum.