Study Shows That Students Who Tweet Get Higher Grades

Tweeting students were found to have a GPA half a point higher than other students.

Twitter may be a popular site for students while they procrastinate, but a new study shows that it can be used for good as well as evil.

A new article called The Effect of Twitter on College Student Engagement and Grades was published in The Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. It studied the tweeting habits and grades of students at an unnamed University, and the results may surprise you.

Tweeting students were found to have a GPA (grade point average) half a point higher than other students. They were also found to be more active in contributing to classes and interacting with their instructors.

The study encouraged students to use twitter as a study-aid, as well as a way to engage in conversations about what they are studying. The control group used more traditional web-based tools such as a typical course-management system’s discussion board. The article reports that students who tweeted in and out of the classroom were more engaged, while tweeting 612 times in a single week.

The study examined 125 first-year pre-health-professional majors, 70 of which were tweeters, and 55 were non-tweeters in the control group.