De los análisis de aceites

Table 1 in Appendix B, at the end of this thesis, presents an overview of the important aspects of prior attitudinal studies. Overall, the findings of the fourteen surveys, as presented in Figure 1 per participant group, are negative: especially young adults and teachers express pessimistic views on the impact of CMC on literacy. Still, perceptions diverge: the source of these conflicts could lie in the diversity in methodologies and participants of the studies.

Figure 1. Attitudes expressed in survey studies into the impact of CMC on youths’ literacy.10F11

Survey design. Figure 2 shows which research design the survey studies used. Nine studies were quantitative surveys (Lenhart et al., 2008; Drouin & Davis, 2009; Freudenberg, 2009; Spooren, 2009; Mildren, 2010; Dansieh, 2011; Geertsema, Hyman, & Van Deventer, 2011; Aziz et al., 2013; Yousaf & Ahmed, 2013), one study combined quantitative and qualitative methods (Purcell, Buchanan, & Friedrich, 2013), and only four studies were entirely of a qualitative nature, involving individual interviews (Adams, 2006/2007; Rankin, 2011; Tayebinik & Puteh, 2012; Salem, 2013), interviews in

11 _{Because studies can include multiple participant groups, they can fall under multiple} categories in Figure 1. This goes for the other descriptive figures in sections 2.2.1 and 2.3.5 too. 1 1 1 0 2 1 0 2 1 5 4 1 2 0 1 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Adolescents Young adults Teachers Parents

Optimistic Neutral Pessimistic Mixed

5

10

qualitative quantitative

focus groups (Adams, 2006/2007; Rankin, 2011), and via email (Adams, 2006/2007). As a result, the number of participants also differed greatly, with qualitative studies ranging from 8 to 211 participants, and quantitative studies from 22 to 2,462. While quantitative studies reveal views of more people involved, qualitative studies can delve deeper into why they have such perceptions.

Medium. The medium/media that was/were surveyed differed as well, which is visualized in Figure 3, with most studies asking about the impact of text messaging (Lenhart et al., 2008; Drouin & Davis, 2009; Freudenberg, 2009; Spooren, 2009; Mildren, 2010; Dansieh, 2011; Geertsema, Hyman, & Van Deventer, 2011; Rankin, 2011; Tayebinik & Puteh, 2012; Aziz et al., 2013; Purcell, Buchanan, & Friedrich, 2013; Yousaf & Ahmed, 2013), several on instant messaging (Adams, 2006/2007; Lenhart et al., 2008; Freudenberg, 2009; Spooren, 2009; Tayebinik & Puteh, 2012), a few on social networking sites (Lenhart et al.,

2008; Spooren, 2009; Purcell,

Buchanan, & Friedrich, 2013), one on emailing (Lenhart et al., 2008), and one

on blogging and microblogging (Purcell, Buchanan, & Friedrich 2013). Salem (2013) focused specifically on WhatsApp and BlackBerry Messenger, both mobile IMing applications. Furthermore, some studies used umbrella terms such as “text-based communication tools” (Lenhart et al., 2008), “new media” (Spooren, 2009), and “digital tools” (Purcell, Buchanan, & Friedrich, 2013). Attitudinal studies are most informative if a variety of currently popular social media are included in surveys.

Participant group. Another major aspect in which the studies differed (see Figure 4) was whose perceptions were queried. Most studies enquired after the perceptions of students’ themselves on the impact of

12 6 3 1 1 texting IMing SNS emailing (micro)blogging 6 6 5 2 3

secondary/middle/high school students university/polytechnic students secondary/middle/high school teachers university/polytechnic teachers parents

Figure 3. Medium.

CMC use on their own and/or other students’ literacy skills, either secondary, middle or high school students (Adams, 2006/2007; Lenhart et al., 2008; Freudenberg, 2009; Spooren, 2009; Mildren, 2010; Salem, 2013), or university/polytechnic students (Drouin & Davis, 2009; Dansieh, 2011; Rankin, 2011; Tayebinik & Puteh, 2012; Aziz et al., 2013; Yousaf & Ahmed, 2013). Other researchers asked teachers for their opinions (Freudenberg, 2009; Spooren, 2009; Mildren, 2010; Dansieh, 2011; Geertsema, Hyman, & Van Deventer, 2011; Aziz et al., 2013; Purcell, Buchanan, & Friedrich, 2013), while yet other studies queried parents (Lenhart et al., 2008; Spooren, 2009; Mildren, 2010). Interestingly, no studies involved primary school pupils or teachers. That the former were excluded makes sense, since primary school- aged children cannot be expected to have formed perceptions on such an issue, neither regarding their own nor regarding others’ literacy skills. That the latter were excluded may, however, be considered a gap in the literature of attitudinal studies, since children are receiving mobile phones and using social media at increasingly younger ages worldwide, which makes it relevant to interview primary school educators about their perceptions of the impact of CMC on youths’ literacy.

Participants’ nationality. As shown in Figure 5, a next point of difference was the countries in which the data were collected, ranging from six studies conducted in the United States (Adams, 2006/2007; Lenhart et al., 2008; Drouin & Davis, 2009; Mildren, 2010; Rankin, 2011; Purcell, Buchanan, & Friedrich, 2013), two in South Africa (Freudenberg, 2009; Geertsema, Hyman, & Van Deventer, 2011), two in Pakistan (Aziz et al., 2013; Yousaf & Ahmed, 2013), and one in Ghana (Dansieh, 2011), Malaysia (Tayebinik & Puteh, 2012), Kuwait (Salem, 2013), and the Netherlands (Spooren, 2009). In other words, six attitudinal studies were conducted in America, four in Asia, three in Africa, and only one in Europe. The generalizability of each study is limited to the perceptions of people from these specific countries, which may greatly differ from those in other countries.

Youths’ age group. Corresponding to the differences in the participants whose perceptions were queried, there were of course differences between the age groups of the youths whose CMC use and literacy skills were asked about, as shown in Figure 6. The studies involving secondary, middle, or high school students and teachers explored views on the impact of CMC use on adolescents’ literacy skills (Adams, 2006/2007; Lenhart et al., 2008; Freudenberg, 2009; Spooren, 2009; Mildren, 2010; Geertsema, Hyman, & Van Deventer, 2011; Purcell, Buchanan, &

6 2 2 1 1 1 1

American South African Pakistani Ghanese Malaysian Kuwaiti Dutch

Friedrich, 2013; Salem, 2013), while

those involving university or

polytechnic students and teachers explored views on young adults’ literacy skills (Drouin & Davis, 2009; Dansieh, 2011; Rankin, 2011; Tayebinik & Puteh, 2012; Aziz et al., 2013; Yousaf & Ahmed, 2013). Corresponding to the complete lack of surveys involving primary school pupils or teachers, no studies explored views on the impact of CMC on children’s literacy: this presents opportunities for further research, due to the increase of social media and mobile phones among children.

Youths’ educational level. For most studies, it was unclear which

educational level the youths had whose CMC use and literacy skills were queried. Education was not explicitly mentioned, and could only be classified (as high) when university students were involved. This is a missed opportunity, since it would be highly interesting to find out if youths of diverse educational levels have different perceptions, and if teachers or parents of such youths differ in their perceptions of the impact of CMC on literacy.

Nature of participants’ concerns. The writing aspects that are believed to be under threat are quite diverse. A large majority of surveys report on concerns for youths’ command of writing conventions, i.e. lower-level writing skills such as spelling (13), textisms in school/formal writing (6), grammar (5), sentences [fluency, length, completeness] (4), punctuation (4), capitalisation (2), and vocabulary / word choice (2). Some studies do not specify which aspects of ‘writing skills’ (2) or ‘writing difficulty’ (1) are specifically feared for. Furthermore, communication skills (1) and writing productivity (1) are mentioned as possibly problematic aspects. Other studies mention the threat that CMC poses to specific writing genres and registers, such as formal writing (3) and standard language (1), which run the risk of getting mixed up with informal online writing and textese, and even speech is feared to be imbued with textisms (1). Only a few studies consider that higher-level writing skills might also be under threat, such as text quality (1), text ideas and content (1), and text organisation (1).

Nature of participants’ optimism. The attitudinal studies have revealed several aspects of written literacy that people believe may be positively affected by CMC, such as writing creativity, personal expression in writing, writing frequency, writing ease, writing in different formats, voice, and specific kinds of higher-level writing skills such as note taking and collaborative writing. Yet these possible benefits are rather overshadowed by the commanding presence of negative sentiments.

Of course, perceived effects do not necessarily correspond to actual effects. People’s judgements are inevitably less reliable than actual observations of behaviour,

8 6

adolescents young adults

since it may be difficult to form an opinion and, moreover, virtually impossible to simply perceive the causality in the relationship between CMC use and literacy. In the next section, research that is more objective, namely observational studies into the impact of CMC on youth literacy, is discussed.