Learning about social psychology by researching on computer mediated communication

Abstract

The teaching of social psychology for Social Communication students can be an excellent opportunity to engage them in field research work. This is a way of providing the knowledge and the experience about how investigation is made in social sciences as well as developing the interest and the competencies for the scientific inquiry. The domain of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) can be the stage for the study of diverse social cognitive phenomena like social representations, social categorisation or prejudice and discrimination. Data generated through interactions on CMC environments come in textual and digitised form, making unnecessary any kind transcription and helping significantly on the making of simple but interesting research projects within a limited time. Social research in CMC environments can also take multiple forms in method, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. These qualities make CMC a powerful pedagogical tool for those that teach on social sciences. The present communication is about a set of small research projects developed under the scope of the Social Psychology issue on a Social Communication course. Students were asked to formulate a social psychological question considering the way people interact in text based CMC environments like IRC or ICQ. The questions were diverse and so were the research designs proposed. This diversity enriched the pedagogical process, making possible for them to get in contact with a wide range of constructs, several theoretical paradigms as well as the integrated and articulated use of multiple research methods and data analysis techniques. This project also engaged the participants on the passionate discussion of ethical questions on the study of human behaviour. Our goal is not to present the empirical results of the students’ projects. Most of those projects faced so many constraints and difficulties that hardly could be considered conclusive. For us, this experience represents a challenging and innovative pedagogical practice and in scientific terms it constitutes a case study about the ways CMC can be used for the for the learning of Social Psychology concepts and methods and for the debate on the research in Social Sciences.