Research questions

Two research questions were identified to investigate how collaborative learning takes place amongst professional peers in social media spaces:

Research Question 1) What roles do scaffolded learning (Vygotsky 1978) and mentoring play in informal learning practice in social media spaces?

Research Question 2) Are connections and learning opportunities in these informal peer learning social media networks dependent upon existing professional networks and connections and the existence (or not) of physical contact between community participants?

Originally a third research question had been identified. This would have been a comparison of differing types of social media spaces, specifically social media spaces that are deliberately constructed (e.g. by a professional body, special interest group, funding body, etc.) contrasted with organically developing commercial social media sites. This would have been addressed through virtual ethnography (Hine 2000). This research question was omitted partly due to the requirement to limit the scale and scope of the research to a realistic level for the time available, and partly as it became apparent when examining data collected for Research Questions (1) and (2) that very few participants used social media spaces that fell outside of mainstream commercial sites. In an early discussion with a potential candidate website for further examination as a “deliberately constructed” space it also became clear that interactions on this site were rare and could not be easily compared with mainstream social media behaviours, further discouraging the planned ethnography work. However this initial line of questioning and ethnographic approach did feed into the formulation of questions for other areas of this research.

Previous Section: Bias | Next Section: Methodology