Strictly business? Personal tweets make profs more "credible" - 32 views
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Casey Finnerty on 29 Mar 11"The group that only saw social tweets ended up rating that professor higher in credibility than the group that saw only scholarly tweets. Researchers also said there was an especially significant difference in ratings when it came to whether a professor was "caring" or not. "These results support previous research that shows revealing personal information can increase a professor's perceived credibility," says the paper. "[I]t was interesting to note that the scholarly tweets did not significantly raise competence ratings in the groups that saw the scholarly posts. This could be an indication that caring, not competence, is the most important dimension when it comes to assessing perceived credibility on social networking sites." Not all students felt good about the social tweets, though. The researchers found that older students tended to rate the professors lower in credibility after having viewed their Twitter accounts. These students were also more likely to think it was a bad idea for profes"
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Casey Finnerty on 29 Mar 11Note the limitation of the study: (fake) professors were all female. Also, younger and older students responded differently.