Collaborative Online Teamwork: Exploring Students' Satisfaction and Attitudes with Google Hangouts as a Supplementary Communication Tool

This study examined differences in student satisfaction and perceptions of online teamwork in two cohorts of an undergraduate educational technology course: one delivered fully asynchronously and the other incorporating synchronous Google Hangouts sessions in student online teamwork. Participants included 50 undergraduate students at a large university in the northeastern United States. Results indicated that the cohort that used synchronous Google Hangouts as a tool supplementary to the asynchronous communication components such as discussion boards and e-mails had a higher level of satisfaction with online teamwork when compared with the cohort that used only asynchronous communication tools. In addition, students reported that synchronous communication using Google Hangouts helped them develop a sense of community. Implications of the results are discussed.