Browsing by Author "Fowler, Melanie Ryan"
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Item College Student Communication Using Social Media(2022-03) Fowler, Melanie Ryan; Hernan, Mary (Florida Southern College Student); Freijo, Kira (Florida Southern College Student)The purpose of this study is to explore the levels of media richness of social media applications that are popular amongst college students. The greatest limitation to this study was sample size. Initially, we performed a repeated-measures ANOVA with the three most rated social media applications. However, the resulting sample size of 11 could not produce meaningful results (B = .03). We collected data for this study as the COVID-19 pandemic began. It is possible that the ways in which individuals used social media changed as the pandemic continued.Item Conceal, Don’t Reveal: The Impact of LGBTQ+ College Students Hiding Their Identity(Florida Southern College, 2022-05) Freijo, Kira; Fowler, Melanie RyanA concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) is an identity that has been stigmatized historically, but is not immediately visible to others, and therefore can be concealed (Quinn & Earnshaw, 2013). Many people with CSIs are motivated to conceal their identity to avoid stigma, but this action is significantly associated with higher levels of depression and generalized anxiety, reduced positive affect, and increased negative affect (Feinstein et al., 2020; Mohr et al., 2019). College students are under a lot of stress in general (Saleh et al., 2017) and college students with CSIs experience additional stressors which can negatively affect their college experiences. This study sought to explore the relationship between concealment factors of LGBTQ+ college students and their academic performance and college involvement. Forty-four LGBTQ+ college students completed an anonymous survey regarding their level of outness, experience with discrimination, amount of internalized stigma, academic performance, and involvement at their college, among other things. This paper describes the discovered relationships between the aforementioned variables and reinforces the implementation of measures that will reduce stigma and provide campus support to LGBTQ+ college students.Item Social Media and Social Adjustment: A Mixed Methods Study of College Learning Community Students(Florida Southern College, 2020-03) Fowler, Melanie RyanColleges have made significant improvements in enrollment rates over the past century. However, graduation rates in higher education have not improved as dramatically. Tinto’s interactional theory of student attrition points to students’ personal connections, or social adjustment, as an important factor related to their decisions to remain in college. Learning community programs are one strategy colleges use to increase students’ opportunities for these social connections. However, technology and social media have changed the ways in which people interact with one another. This quasi-experimental explanatory mixed method study explored if learning community students’ social adjustment was influenced by the use of social media within their learning community. Two cohorts of learning community students used the social media app GroupMe for their first semester in college and two cohorts did not. Faculty in the social media group received Ethical Communications Using Social Media in Education training prior to the start of the semester. The researcher compared students’ change in raw Social Adjustment to College Questionnaire (SACQ) scores (N = 44). The results indicate that students’ use of social media with their classmates and faculty does not decrease social adjustment. Additionally, there were no differences in social adjustment based on active, interactive, or responsive social media use (n = 26). An inductive analysis of the qualitative data (N = 35) revealed three themes (i.e., academic, non-academic, and prosocial) for the types of communication for which students use GroupMe. Lastly, the quantitative and qualitative data were integrated (n = 22). The results indicate that academic and prosocial communications via GroupMe may predict academic and personal-emotional adjustment, respectively. These findings suggest that social media, when used intentionally and ethically, may be beneficial to students and serve as a window into students’ experiences as well as encourage a scholarly environment. Furthermore, leaders of academic institutions should provide opportunities for educators to receive training on ethical communication using social media. Future research should continue to explore social media use based on the current study’s two-dimensional model, include direct measures of social media use, and investigate students’ experiences from a variety of academic disciplines.