Exploring the Grey Areas of Teacher - Student Relationships on Facebook: Implications for Educational Development and Achievement

The quality of teacher - student relationships has been identified as an important predictor of students' outcomes such as social, emotional, behavioural, and academic competence. Traditionally, teacher - student relationship is limited to the school environment and specifically to the classroom. Yet teacher - student relationships have existed outside the school environment too, and now include activities such as Facebook relationships. It is considered that Facebook interaction between teachers and students holds the potential for "de-formalising" teacher - student relationships. However teacher -student relationships on Facebook may equally be problematic. This study employs the multiple case study method to assess the inherent outcomes of such relationships on Facebook in Ghanaian schools, against the background of earlier studies which identify the following as areas of concern for educational development: the fear that teachers may exploit students on Facebook, the vulnerability of both teachers and students resulting from the lack of absolute control over content generation on Facebook, differences in expectations that teachers and students have of each other in online communication as well as the ever present multiple identities accompanied by role conflicts.