The Pros and Cons of Facebook Study Groups

You are entering your first year of university. You are excited for a new experience, a new stage in your life. However, among that excitement comes a sense of fear: how will you perform academically? What if you just cannot seem to understand a concept regardless of how many times you go over your notes? What if you miss a class and you have no acquaintances to provide you with the lecture notes? What if your lab is in a few hours and you’ve completely forgotten about the pre-lab? These are all valid concerns, but once you enter university, you begin to realize that there is more help out there than you expected.

Professors will have office hours where you can drop by, and many of them will also take a few minutes after class to answer students’ questions and help clear up any confusion. But when it comes to your missed lecture notes, or if you are having difficulty with pre-labs or assignments, it can feel odd to reach out to your profs or teaching assistants for help.

Not to worry. A few weeks into the semester and you will probably find a Facebook group for each of your classes. Initially, you will be excited — it is a page where you can share your questions, including the ones you were too embarrassed to ask your profs, find lecture notes and recordings, and even get some help with your assignments and quizzes! But is it all as good as it seems? Are those Facebook groups beneficial to all students, or do they have their downsides as well?

I headed to the Facebook groups to see what previous students had to say on the topic by sharing a short, anonymous survey. The majority of the survey respondents said that they have been in at least five groups throughout their university years, indicating that they have had a variety of groups to reflect on.

Some of the responses regarding the advantages of Facebook study groups included:

· “One of the benefits was the discussions about past test questions (if released by Prof). If you don’t have close friends that understand the material at a high level, this is a great way to get answers.”

· “You get to discuss a question you have with a lot of people. You feel better when you know that you’re not the only one lost.”

· “I really appreciated posted lecture notes and especially lecture recordings so that if you missed a class you still had access to the lecture material.”

· “It was a great resource to go to when other resources were exhausted.”

There were also responses regarding the disadvantages of the groups, including:

· “Assumptions from other students, rude comments, and unrelated posts.”

· “It stressed me out when other students were ahead of me in preparing for a test or an exam.”

· “People would be concerned with the wrong information and make things more confusing.”

· “Some of the info in the groups is poorly organized.”

Despite the drawbacks listed, everyone who took the survey responded that they would, in fact, recommend a first-year student to join the Facebook groups created for specific courses. When asked to rate the level of helpfulness of the groups (on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being least helpful and 10 being most helpful), the average rating was 7.92. It becomes clear, then, that the Facebook groups can be beneficial, when used appropriately. I have been part of academic Facebook groups myself, and while some have been great resources, others have been a distraction.

As some of the survey participants mentioned, a number of students would overthink information. While I would be studying from my lecture notes, a number of students would refer to needless details from external resources. Upon seeing their questions, I would panic and wonder where they found that information. Was this covered during the lecture? Was I supposed to know it? Would it be on the test? All of this added to my high levels of stress during exam times.

Another issue I had was when students would post crude remarks or use the group as a joke. If, for example, someone posted a genuine question regarding lecture information or an assignment, the black sheep would reply with false information or an unrelated joke altogether. This was aggravating because a lot of us were joining the groups for help and support.

Nevertheless, I have been part of groups where the students respected each other and the academic code. We would discuss lecture material that had been unclear to us, share notes for missed lectures, and support each other. We would not share answers to quizzes that we were instructed to do on our own.

So, what’s the verdict? Would I recommend a first-year student entering Western to join Facebook study groups? I would.

Join the groups, have them as backup for the days when you have a question you want a quicker answer to or as a resource for missed lecture notes. I would recommend that you do not let it be your primary source of support or backup. Reach out to professors — many profs will take some time after lecture for you to ask questions, and if you feel entirely unclear about a topic, go to their office hours. In my first year, I was afraid to go to office hours because I thought the instructor would consider my questions stupid. But all my profs were helpful. You can also reach out to the TAs and use the forums on OWL, which are regulated by the profs and TAs and generally have more trustworthy answers.

This article was written by Nour Saleh, an undergraduate “Science Writer in Residence” from David Smith’s Lab at the University of Western Ontario. The article was edited by Navaneeth Mohan, a Masters student in Applied Mathematics at Western.