The influence of LinkedIn group community on postgraduate student experience, satisfaction and grades

Social media platforms represent an opportunity for higher education institutions to complement and enhance classroom teaching and learning. The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of a LinkedIn group community on student experience, satisfaction and grades. A total of 118 students from three postgraduate programmes at a university in the United Kingdom were randomly assigned during the second week of the semester to either an experimental group representing the LinkedIn group community or to the control group, where students attended the classroom sessions but were not included in a LinkedIn group. In week twelve of the semester, 40 students in the experimental group and 42 in the control group voluntarily completed the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey questionnaire. The results of independent t-tests indicate that students in the experimental group scored significantly higher than the control group on engagement, satisfaction and grades, and the behavioural engagement within the LinkedIn group community contributes to satisfaction. Analysis of the learning activities reveals that the interactive content produces a higher engagement rate than the informative content. International students who had previous experience with LinkedIn show higher levels of engagement within the experimental LinkedIn group. The research contributes to the educational use of LinkedIn and explains that the effective planning of learning activities in an online group community, which includes the consideration of individual characteristics and content types, may influence positively students' levels of engagement, satisfaction and grades.