For my Upper division Applied Research Communication course, I worked on a semester long research project in a team of four. Our team did an applied research study and report on chosen topic: the study of students’ reaction to social media background checks by prospective employers.
We began by formulating our research question. Later we researched our population and gather data from our chosen population. We completed our research on qualitative research along with the aid of some qualitative research methods. We did asynchronous and synchronous, individual and group interviews. We collected data on the main population, the SFU upper division students, by conducting interviews through various methods. The study was conducted over the course of approximately three months during the Fall 2013 SFU semester with interviews taking place over the course of two weeks.
The invention of participatory social media sites has opened a sea of possibilities for users to freely express themselves by creating online personas. Unfortunately, there are possible negative implications to the free use of social media sites, one of them being the possibility of getting rejected in a job application due to the content posted on such sites. As students are graduating and entering the job market they are faced with the need to alter their social media profiles in order to cater to social media background checks performed my employers. This study analyzes the reaction SFU upper division students have towards this issue and if they have any change in behavior towards their final years of study.
© Kenneth Lee
