Does it Really Matter? Using Virtual Office Hours to Enhance Student-Faculty Interaction

1. INTRODUCTION The use of Web 2.0 technologies in higher education is transforming learning and teaching in significant ways. Recent studies, for example, have examined the use of Web logs (Williams and Jacobs, 2004), wikis (Boulos, Maramba, and Wheeler, 2006), and instant messaging (Jeong, 2007; Contreras-Castillo, Perez-Fragoso, and Favela, 2006) in the classroom environment. Universities and colleges are rapidly embracing these new technologies and leveraging them to not only enhance their traditional curriculum but also to extend course offerings beyond the college campus. One key area where Web-based technologies are predicted to have a significant impact is in their ability to transform the way in which professors and students are able to communicate and interact with one another. The importance of informal interaction between faculty and students has been studied extensively in the literature (e.g., Iverson, Pascarella, and Terenzini, 1984; Kuh and Hu, 2001; Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005; Halawah, 2006). Nadler and Nadler (2000) found that higher levels of informal contact with faculty correlated positively with students' academic performance, satisfaction with their college experience, and retention. Cox and Orehovec (2007) argued that even non-academic interactions between students and faculty have a positive impact by making students feel more valued and important, which, in turn, may contribute to higher levels of student persistence. Several researchers have noted the potential for computer-mediated communication (CMC) to increase the amount and frequency of interaction between students and their instructors (Chou, 2001; Klassen and Vogel, 2003; Cox and Orehovec, 2007). The literature on the use of Web-based communication tools, however, suggests there is still much to learn about its impact on traditional measures of student success in higher education. Most studies related to the utilization of Web-based technologies in general focus on the comparison of traditional versus online courses along a range of measures including student satisfaction, retention, and performance (Hannay and Newvine, 2006; Smart and Cappel, 2006; Oomen-Early et al., 2008). According to Wingard (2004), the use of Web-based technologies is actually more prevalent in the traditional classrooms as faculty increasingly utilize these technologies to enhance learning activities within the classroom and support communications outside the classroom. Web 2.0 technologies and their increasing use in higher education have presented educators with unique opportunities to further engage students in the learning environment using these new technologies. In this study, Web 2.0 technologies and applications are defined following the conceptualization by Tim O'Reilly who first articulated the term in 2005, and later defined Web 2.0 by characterizing the "Web as platform," and Web 2.0 applications that run on the platform as services that provide users control over their own content and facilitate collaboration between individuals and groups (O'Reilly, 2007, p. 19). Web 2.0 technologies are most often associated with social networking Websites such as MySpace (2009), Facebook (2009), and YouTube (2009), as well as applications such as blogs, wikis, and podcasts that are used to create and share information. A relatively new trend in higher education is use of Web 2.0 technologies to facilitate virtual office hours using "chat" or IM tools for both distance learning environments, and as a supplement to traditional pedagogical practices of face-to-face office hours (Myers, Bishop, Sayee, and Kelly, 2004; Hooper, Pollanen, and Teismann, 2006; Riley, 2007). Past studies have explored the used IM or "chat" functions in general (Hu, Wood, Smith, and Westbrook, 2004), and in organizational settings (Cameron and Webster, 2005; Quan-Haase, Cothrel, and Wellman, 2005), and found support for its role in facilitating social connectedness, and as an emerging collaborative communications tool, respectively. …