Examining the Blogging Habits of Agricultural Leadership Students: Understanding Motivation, Use, and Self-efficacy

Abstract

Blogging is a form of social media and student engagement is at the center of blogging. The benefits of blogging include ease in making writing easier to share, encouraging students to write outside of the classroom, and supporting group collaboration. The findings suggest students are more passive in their blogging experiences, as the data found students generally read blogs more than they wrote blogs. The unified theory on the acceptance and use of technology and self-efficacy were used as the framework for the study. This study sought to explore agricultural leadership students’ motivations for blogging in writing intensive courses. Effort expectancy, performance expectancy, and behavioral intention were significantly correlated with self-efficacy. Teacher training could be used to increase awareness among educators about the benefits of blogging. Educators must be able to convey the benefits of educational blogging in terms of its ease and benefit in order to encourage student acceptance. Improved preparation of agricultural leadership instructors to include blogging in writing intensive courses may improve student engagement and learning, and increase our academic discipline’s knowledge of approaches that influence the practice of technology diffusion.