The application of Facebook for informal educational purposes by management students

Social media are perceived as a phenomenon that have changed the nature of interpersonal relationships and the information flow. Education is one of possible applications of social media. The aim of this work is to present the opinion of students of management concerning the application of relationships established on Facebook as informal support in the didactic process at university. For this purpose to be achieved 98 respondents who are students of the Faculty of Management at University of Economics in Katowice (Poland) were selected with the use of purposive sampling. The respondents expressed their opinion about the usefulness of exchange of information (in three possible forms of contact on Facebook: closed groups, open groups, and direct contact out of groups) to make it possible to discuss general issues related to problems connected with educational process at university, find out significant facts regarding the subjects/lecturers, and exchange didactic materials. In the opinion of the respondents the lowest means for the purposes of information exchange were indicated for the form of contact within open groups . The highest standard deviations on a Likert scale are also observed in this case. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) made it also possible to state that there are statistically significant differences of average values of the respondents’ indications distinguished on the grounds of their sex for the purposes of direct contact in case of exchange of information regarding the subjects/lecturers and didactic materials.