BUILDING RELATEDNESS THROUGH HASHTAGS: SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND MOTIVATION WITHIN SOCIAL MEDIA-BASED ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUMS by LUCAS JOHN JENSEN (Under the Direction of Lloyd Rieber) ABSTRACT With the rise of online education, instructors are searching for ways to motivate students to engage in meaningful discussions with one another online and build a sense of community in the digital classroom. This study explores how student motivation is affected when social media tools are used as a substitute for traditional online discussion forums hosted in Learning Management Systems. The main research question for this study was as follows: What factors influence student motivation in a hashtag-based discussion forum? To investigate this question, the following subquestions guided the research: a. How do participants engage in the hashtag discussion assignment? b. What motivational and social influence factors affect participants' activity when they post to the Twitter hashtag? c. How do previous experience with and attitudes toward social media and online discussion forums affect participant motivation in the hashtag-based discussion forum? Drawing on the motivational theories of Self-Determination Theory and Social Influence Theory, as well as the concept of Personal Learning Environments, it was expected that online learners would be more motivated to participate in online discussions if they felt a sense of autonomy over the discussion, and if the discussion took place in an environment similar to the social media environment they experience in their personal lives. Participants in the course were undergraduate students in an educational technology course at a large Southeastern public university. Surveys were administered at the beginning and end of the semester to determine the participants’ patterns of technology and social media usage, attitudes toward social media and online discussion forums, and to determine motivation levels and social influence factors. Participants were asked to use the social media platform Twitter to post about class using a specific hashtag. At the end of the semester, all tweets were analyzed and four participants were interviewed. Contrary to expectations, overall participation in the Twitter assignment was low and no meaningful discussion was created. Participants reported neutral levels of motivation on the surveys. Responses indicated that the low motivation levels might have been due to the lack of personal details shared and the lack of information that seemed relevant to the participants’ personal interests. A lack of relatedness to the content and fellow classmates online led participants to a lack of motivation that kept them from engaging in conversational uses of Twitter. INDEX WORDS: Hashtags, Intrinsic motivation, Motivation, Personal learning environments, Self-determination theory, Social influence theory, Social media, Twitter, Web 2.0 BUILDING RELATEDNESS THROUGH HASHTAGS: SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND MOTIVATION WITHIN SOCIAL MEDIA-BASED ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUMS by LUCAS JOHN JENSEN B.A., Mississippi State University, 1997 M.Ed., The University of Georgia, 2004 M.Ed., The University of Georgia, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2015 © 2015 Lucas John Jensen All Rights Reserved BUILDING RELATEDNESS THROUGH HASHTAGS: SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND MOTIVATION WITHIN SOCIAL MEDIA-BASED ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUMS by LUCAS JOHN JENSEN Major Professor: Lloyd Rieber Committee: Bonnie Cramond ChanMin Kim Michael Orey Electronic Version Approved: Suzanne Barbour Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2015 iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to all of the friends, family, peers, and colleagues who guided me along the way. I especially want to thank my partner Jen Schumann, whose love, support, and honesty made this possible. Jen: words cannot express how much I appreciate you. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Lloyd Rieber, who has guided my graduate career since 2006. I was drawn to this program through his scholarship, and he has guided my own nascent attempts at research with loyalty, fairness, encouragement, and wisdom. I appreciate all he has done for me during this process, and I am truly sorry for missing all of those deadlines. I would also like to thank my committee members, Drs. Bonnie Cramond, ChanMin Kim, and Michael Orey, whose support and feedback have helped me grow as a researcher, thinker, and writer. I hope to one day be able to emulate their thoughtful service to wayward graduate students such as myself. Many educators at the University of Georgia have helped me along the way. Gretchen Thomas has been an invaluable supporter and mentor. Early in my Ph.D. career, Drs. Gregory Clinton and Ike Choi were there for me to provide guidance on becoming an educator. Dr. Meg Hines also generously provided research opportunities in many of her classrooms. The quantitative data collection was made possible by Neo Hao, who programmed a way to extract data from Twitter. I am so grateful for him and his willingness to sort through reams of data during his time off. Thanks again, Neo. I would like to acknowledge all of the fantastic colleagues, peers, and co-workers I have had at the University of Georgia over the past 15 years. Institutions are nothing without their people, and the quality of the people I have encountered at UGA is the reason I am proud to have vi been a student here. Thank you for your encouragement, guidance, and friendship. Special thanks are needed for Drs. Keri Valentine and Daisyane Barreto, who kept me writing. Finally, I must acknowledge the best support system I have and the one for which I am least responsible: my family. I consider myself beyond lucky to be surrounded by such a caring, understanding, adventurous, and motivating family. Thanks to Mom, Dad, Elise, Marianne, Alan, Kerri, Kasey, Max, and all of the extended family I have stretching from Alabama to Minnesota. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... x LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER I .................................................................................................................................. 1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 1 Statement of the Problem ....................................................................................................................... 8 Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................................. 10 Research Questions and Methods ....................................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................................... 13 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .......................................................................................... 13 Online Discussion Forums and Social Media ..................................................................................... 14 Social Influence Theory ........................................................................................................................ 17 Learning Environments ....................................................................................................................... 19 Motivation ............................................................................................................................................. 23 CHAPTER III ............................................................................................................................. 34 METHODS .................................................................................................................................. 34 Research Setting ................................................................................................................................... 35 Participants ........................................................................................................................................... 36 Research Design and Methods ............................................................................................................. 36 Sampling ................................................................................................................................................ 38 viii Data Gathering ..................................................................................................................................... 39 Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 43 Schedule and Feasibility ....................................................................................................................... 46 Assumptions .........................................................................................................................................