A study of the relationship between instant messaging communication and student assessment results

Francis Yue
City University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong SAR, China

The use of instant messaging is very popular among local undergraduate students. This paper examines the situation where instant messaging is used in tutoring undergraduate students. These students need to submit an essay assignment as the overall assessment by the end of a course. A large group of students was tutored under two teaching methods, and the instant messages exchanged with their tutor were recorded. The data collected were then compared with the final assessment results obtained by these students. It was found that those who were inclined to exchange instant messages with their tutor were the more capable as well as the less capable studens. Also, the gender of students was found to be an influencing factor on exchanging instant messages.