Proceedings of the 6th Teaching & Education Conference, Vienna

THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS BY ONLINE DOCTORAL STUDENTS AT THE THESIS STAGE

RUOLAN WANG, JOSÉ REIS-JORGE, LUCILLA CROSTA, ANTHONY EDWARDS, MAGESWARY MUDALIAR

Abstract:

Our paper aims to explore how the doctoral students made use of digital technologies - Social Media (SM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools - in the thesis stage of their fully online doctoral studies and what impact those tools had on their studies. Data were collected from an online survey (n=28) and a series of semi-structured interviews (n=9). The analysis of the survey data informed the qualitative phase of data collection. Both survey and interview data show a similar pattern of digital technologies uses in which for our participants SM tools far outpaces the usages of AI tools. We argue that the unique characteristics of the online doctoral students might have determined the popularity of some digital tools. The study findings help us to better understand students digital experience as both individuals and learners.

Keywords: Online doctoral studies, doctoral students, EdD programme, digital tools, social media, artificial intelligence

DOI: 10.20472/TEC.2018.006.006

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