Pinterest in Higher Education: Insights From a Sport Management Course

Abstract

Universities and instructors seek to design educational experiences and programs that help students learn and develop professionally. One effective approach to doing so involves using active teaching-learning approaches in which students take the lead and learn by engaging in real-world situations that require reflection and decision-making. Social media platforms hold some potential for hosting such teaching-learning activities, and can facilitate connections between the university and the professional world through active learning approaches. This study focuses on exploring the educational use of Pinterest, a social media platform emphasizing the audiovisual component. An educational experience was designed using Pinterest in a sport management course, requiring students to generate pins and boards based on audiovisual material they captured from sports facilities and equipment with their smartphones, thus connecting theory with practice. A total of 247 students (77.7% male and 22.3% female) completed a questionnaire to assess their perceptions of Pinterest’s educational opportunities. Findings demonstrate Pinterest’s educational potential, showing that students perceived learning as more productive, benefited from peer and faculty opinions, experienced a flexible hybrid teaching-learning environment, and developed their professional profiles. These results provide valuable evidence that can inform university educators’ design of social media-based experiences grounded in active teaching-learning approaches.