As a popular social interactive tool, Twitter has become increasingly acceptable since its birth (Hitchcock, & Young, 2016). Besides interpersonal communication, Twitter could be applied to the field of education due to its multiple functions. Online communicative platforms could promote participation, conceptualization, and collaboration through Twitter (Gao et al., 2012). Learners could conveniently and easily communicate with each other through tweets or instant messages. Twitter could transmit voice, pictures, texts, and videos, through which teachers and learners could obtain and transmit enough information and deal with knowledge transfer or acquisition (Chapman, & Marich, 2020). Use of Twitter could improve academic results in General Surgery Residency Programs (Hill, Dore, Em, McLoughlin, et al., 2021). Twitter with learning contents directly in the tweets could improve learning outcomes of radiology (Kauffman, Weisberg, Zember, & Fishman, 2021).
Positive reports have been made regarding the use of Twitter in education. Twitter has gained popularity when applied to the field of education (Hitchcock & Battista, 2013; Young, 2014). Twitter applied to education could improve engagement, cooperation, critical thinking skills, and learning environments (Greenhow & Gleason, 2012). Teachers could supervise students’ learning and encourage them to participate in academic activities through Twitter (Chamberlin & Lehmann, 2011; Gao et al., 2012).
Recent years have witnessed a great deal of research into Twitter-assisted academic achievements in education. With the rapid development of social media, the educational system has undergone a radical shift toward globalization assisted with social media (Arceneaux, & Dinu, 2018). Facebook has been demonstrated able to globalize and facilitate education although other social media have not been included (Davis et al., 2014). The use of Twitter platform could improve learners’ performance in the classroom, leading to better academic achievements in numerous ways (Feezell, 2019). Teachers and students could raise and answer questions by using Twitter conveniently and anonymously, which promotes the effect of learning and improve academic achievements (Young, 2009). Outside the classroom, students could discuss and solve difficult problems through the Twitter platform, share different opinions, increase their interactions, and improve academic achievements (Manzo, 2009). Through tweets out of class, they could conceptualize and memorize psychological issues better than they had done in class (Blessing, Blessing, & Fleck, 2012).
Although there have been a great number of studies committed to the effect of social media on education, very few of them have conducted a meta-analytical review on the effect of Twitter on education. Therefore, the first research objective in this study is to address the effect of Twitter on education in general.