Facebook Friendships Between College/University Instructors And
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Communication Dissertations Department of Communication Spring 5-2011 Facebook Friendships between College/University Instructors and Students: Deciding Whether or Not to Allow Students as Friends, Communicating with Students, and the Individual Differences that Influence Instructors' Impression Management on Facebook Melissa S. Plew Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Plew, Melissa S., "Facebook Friendships between College/University Instructors and Students: Deciding Whether or Not to Allow Students as Friends, Communicating with Students, and the Individual Differences that Influence Instructors' Impression Management on Facebook." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2011. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_diss/26 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FACEBOOK FRIENDSHIPS BETWEEN COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS: DECIDING WHETHER OR NOT TO ALLOW STUDENTS AS FRIENDS, COMMUNICATING WITH STUDENTS, AND THE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES THAT INFLUENCE INSTRUCTORS‟ IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT ON FACEBOOK by MELISSA S. PLEW Under the Direction of Dr. Cynthia Hoffner and Dr. Jaye Atkinson ABSTRACT This research examined Facebook friendships between college/university instructors and students. Based on the development of instructor-student dual relationships, this study described instructors‟ Facebook use with students. This included explanations for allowing/not allowing students, communication with students, and ethical concerns. Rooted in the theories of impression management, self-monitoring and role conflict, plus the concept of ambient awareness, hypotheses predicted relationships between instructors‟ individual differences and Facebook use: (1) self-monitoring would be positively related to role conflict; and (2) self- monitoring, (3) role conflict, and (4) ambient awareness would be positively related to instructors‟ self-presentation, impression management behaviors, and privacy management. Emails were sent to faculty at 270 colleges/universities throughout the U.S. and 331 instructors completed the online survey. Of these, 56.2% allowed students as friends. Open-ended answers revealed that instructors allowed students as friends to communicate, to facilitate learning about each other, and because it was difficult to decline requests. Some instructors did not allow certain students (e.g., problematic students, undergraduates). They communicated by commenting on and liking posts on students‟ pages, and had ethical concerns about negative consequences. Open-ended answers revealed that instructors did not allow students as friends to maintain the professional divide and avoid favoritism, which explained their ethical concerns. Hierarchical regression analyses tested the predicted relationships. Results revealed that self-monitoring approached significance as having a positive relationship with role conflict and a negative relationship with privacy management, but was not related to self-presentation or impression management behaviors. Role conflict was not related to impression management. Awareness of students was positively related to self-presentation and impression management behaviors, but unexpectedly, perception of students‟ awareness of instructors was negatively related to privacy management. A partial correlation analysis tested high/low self-monitors separately and not only replicated the results, but also revealed that high self-monitors‟ perception of students‟ awareness was positively correlated with self-presentation and impression management behaviors. These findings indicate that ambient awareness is related to online communication and should be studied further. This is especially intriguing since the two types of ambient awareness related differently to the three types of impression management studied in this research. INDEX WORDS: Facebook, College/university instructors, Instructor-student relationships, Self-monitoring, Role conflict, Ambient awareness, Impression management, Ethics FACEBOOK FRIENDSHIPS BETWEEN COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS: DECIDING WHETHER OR NOT TO ALLOW STUDENTS AS FRIENDS, COMMUNICATING WITH STUDENTS, AND THE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES THAT INFLUENCE INSTRUCTORS‟ IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT ON FACEBOOK by MELISSA S. PLEW A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2011 Copyright by Melissa S. Plew 2011 FACEBOOK FRIENDSHIPS BETWEEN COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS: DECIDING WHETHER OR NOT TO ALLOW STUDENTS AS FRIENDS, COMMUNICATING WITH STUDENTS, AND THE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES THAT INFLUENCE INSTRUCTORS‟ IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT ON FACEBOOK by MELISSA S. PLEW Committee Chairs: Cynthia Hoffner Jaye Atkinson Committee: Greg Lisby Kathryn Fuller-Seeley Mary Shoffner Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2011 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Earning a Ph.D. is a long and often difficult process, but I was lucky enough to have many people who supported my goal of getting this degree. I am afraid I will miss someone if I mention too many names, but please know that if you played any part in my life over the past five years, you helped me get here and I thank you. My friends deserve the first thank you because they were the ones constantly there for me during this process. I want to especially thank Elizabeth Cohen and Melissa Miller, who were awesome enough to help me code the open-ended data. I appreciate the time you both took from your own work to do that. Add in Anita Atwell-Seate and you have three of the best academic friends anyone could ask for. You were the ones who supported me when I was feeling incompetent, frustrated and lost; but, you were also the ones who made sure I had fun along the way! My family deserves more thanks than I can ever give. You have always been there for me and I could not have done this without you. It was your love and support that made me realize I could do this. Dad, your never-ending encouragement and constant belief that I could accomplish anything I set my mind to has helped me reach more goals than you‟ll ever know. Mom, I miss you and know that you would be bragging to everyone you met that your daughter has a Ph.D. Dan, I know you take credit for any intelligence I have, so thank you for that (and for being a pretty cool brother). Thank you all for being my biggest cheerleaders. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my advisors, Drs. Cindy Hoffner and Jaye Atkinson. Thank you both for the all the help and advice you have given me. The compliments on things I did well encouraged me to keep going and the constructive criticism on the things I needed to improve helped me become better. I appreciate the fact that you both pushed me to become a v better researcher. I know these skills will help me in all my future academic endeavors. Thank you both for the time and effort you took to make sure I was always doing my best work. I also want to thank the rest of my committee for everything they have done to help me finish this dissertation. Drs. Greg Lisby, Kathy Fuller-Seeley and Mary Shoffner - thank you for the advice on how to make this a better project. Sometimes a fresh eye can make a world of difference and I know your comments and suggestions helped me move forward with this research. I appreciate your support during this process. Drs. David Cheshier and Carol Winkler also deserve acknowledgement for the opportunities and advice they provided during my time at Georgia State. I thank Dr. Cheshier for giving me countless opportunities to add to my vita and for all the advice he gave when I needed to figure out what to do next. I thank Dr. Winkler for giving me the opportunity to work with her during this past semester. Not only was I able to work from home and devote more time to writing my dissertation, but working on the data analysis helped me realize I really do know what I am doing! Thank you both for being such adamant supporters of and advocates for the students in the communication department. Last, but by no means least; thank you, Daniel. I know you got the brunt of my stress during this process, but you were also the one that kept me sane. Thank you for the always- brewing coffee, the insistence that I was capable of doing this, and making me laugh when I didn‟t think I could. Most importantly, thank you for loving me, even when I made it difficult to do. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEGEMENTS iv LIST OF TABLES xiii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 The Present Study 6 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 11 Foundational Background 11 Instructor-Student Relationships 11 Dual relationships 13 Ethical communication 16 Online Social Network Sites (SNSs) 24 Facebook 26 Instructor-student use of Facebook 30 Conceptual Background 33 Role Identity 33 Role identity on Facebook 37 Role conflict 38 Role conflict on Facebook 39 Self-Monitoring 41 Self-monitoring on Facebook 43 Impression Management 45 Self-presentation as impression management 45 vii Posting as impression management