Extensive research has been conducted to investigate the role of emojis in interpretation, impression, perceptions, personality and relationship building. However, in the higher education sector, few studies have examined how emojis influence the learning motivation and performance of students. Using the theories of source credibility and stimulus…

As AI technologies become increasingly integrated into education, this research investigates how students react to AI-generated versus human feedback in teamwork skills assessment. In Study 1, 108 students completed a virtual teamwork simulation and received assessment feedback framed as either AI- or human-generated. Students showed a clear…

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are increasingly aware of the importance of brand equity for brand strategy. Earlier research has disregarded the eWOM of HEIs, so this study furthers our understanding of the importance of eWOM on the creation and leverage of HEIs' brand equity. A qualitative approach was adopted, with semi-structured…

With increasing social media attacks on scholarship and individual academics, educators must be prepared to talk to their students openly about skewed threats from the ideological right. This assignment opens up dialogue against such attacks by introducing core tenets of information literacy in conversation with an instructor's academic work. The…

Shooting events and threats of shootings have come to shape the educational environment of many schools across the United States in recent years. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of threats alone rose by 60 percent, and most of these threats were made anonymously on various social media platforms commonly used by youth. While the overwhelming…

Since time immemorial, disasters have been part and parcel of the human experience; hence the ever-present need for disaster management. These disasters can take place everywhere and at any time, including institutions of higher education. The use of social media platforms as a tool for disaster management has gained traction in recent years due…

Influencers have emerged as influential figures in bridging the gap between brands and consumers, establishing this practice as a viable profession in advertising. Among the diverse spectrum of influencers, micro-influencers, characterized by their follower count of less than 100,000, excel in fostering engagement due to their perceived…

Although applied to numerous communication contexts, affordance approaches have yet to receive sustained attention in the instructional literature. The ongoing migration to online pedagogy suggests a need to examine the impact of technological affordances and communication in Learning Management Systems. To that end, an experimental study…

As technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and other forms of machine communication become more popular and readily available, the opportunities for use in an online class increase. This replication and extension sought to understand and test the use of AI versus human communication in an online learning space--specifically the learning…

There has been a dramatic increase in use of remote communication via audio-visual technology since the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes use in complex legal hearings where decisions rely heavily on credibility assessments of an individual and their interview statement. This is particularly relevant in legal settings where negative assessments can…

This project explores the impacts of emojis on students' impressions when used in a course welcome email. We adopt a 4 x 3 factorial design to determine how different emojis (i.e., [winking face emoji], [face-with-tears-of-joy emoji], [tongue-sticking-out face emoji]) impact students' impressions of credibility, immediacy, and liking. Data from…

The spread of fake news (FN) has attracted attention from disciplines ranging from social sciences to Artificial Intelligence. This work is novel because it explores the news-sharing behaviour of social-media users, focussing on those that spread FN, rather than the psychological motivations behind them. The 14-item Risky News-Sharing Quotient…

In Fall 2021, the COVID-19 Delta Variant produced yet another surge of cases and deaths. Many parents eagerly awaited the official emergency authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for younger children. However, other parents had already planned to delay or refuse vaccination. To ascertain how news and information consumption may impact vaccination…

This paper explores the use of paralinguistics, defined as cues which facilitate interaction and communication without the use of specific words (e.g., emoticons, emojis) in instructor-student technologically-mediated out-of-class communication (TMOCC). Using an experiment manipulating cue use and instructor sex in initial emails, we examined how…

Social media are a popular source of information for young people, serving the purposes of not only communication but also the creation and distribution of content as well as advertising. However, that content may contain science-related information that in many cases is not based on scientifically proven sources. Content creators and/or…