Instant Community: The Effective Uses of GroupMe in Higher Education Settings

Research paper · first published on this site

Social networking tools and technologies have become an important part of our everyday lives. We use online social networks to connect with our friends and relatives, to obtain newsworthy information, to communicate with members of our sport team, and sometimes to vent about our negative life experiences to billions of social network users on the internet.

GroupMe, an instant messaging group chat application, since its' creation in the year two thousand and ten, has enjoyed growing popularity with a specific group of people - college and university students. In this research paper, I will explore, analyze, and discuss the use of GroupMe instant messaging application by students and faculty in higher education settings and, based on my findings, will offer some guidelines for effective, efficient, and productive use of GroupMe in tertiary environments.

If unfamiliar with this mobile application, GroupMe is a free instant messaging tool that allows its users to create and participate in group chats. This app is currently owned by Microsoft and is available on iOS, Android, and a desktop web platform. GroupMe enables its users to send text messages, share photos, videos, and other media, and has several useful additional features such as a web client, file upload, location sharing, and direct messaging.

To make the best use of GroupMe in higher education settings, we must consider the use cases, advantages, and disadvantages of this application as per the research studies and academic literature. The Gronseth & Hebert (2018) research article lists many positive qualities and benefits of this application, citing benefits like the students are very familiar with mobile messaging applications like GroupMe, that this application is free to use and is available to all, that it has been shown to promote productive course collaboration between students, and that it allows faculty and course instructors to share course calendar, events, and links to materials with the students. College students that participated in this study praised the GroupMe platform's ease of use, media capability, and its' immediacy in text message delivery. The students also found this MIM tool is much easier to access than the Learning Management System (LMS) discussion tools and liked the fact that they could make and maintain contact with classmates even after class completion. The downsides of the application mentioned by the authors of the study were the inability to share very extensive feedback with the group, the additional time commitment by students and faculty required to maintain their presence on GroupMe, and, most importantly, the disruptive nature of message notifications that required periodic silencing. (Gronseth & Hebert, 2018)

In Huggins (2025), Christopher M. Huggins, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, published findings based on an interview of his students. The students in this professor's classroom cited the immediacy of a text message as a mode of communication to be superior to that of an email and liked that they could use the app without having to provide their real phone number or share additional personal information, alleviating their online privacy and safety concerns, and stated that they mostly use GroupMe to remind them of assignment due dates and class events, to work with other students on course goals and objectives, to find like-minded peers, to form study groups, to ask for immediate help regarding course materials from others, and to stay connected with student clubs and on-campus organizations. Professor Huggins did not interview the faculty, however, thought that faculty could leverage GroupMe for class management activities and to address various administrative issues, as the app chats are class-specific and are easy to navigate, unlike email from students. The GroupMe downsides cited in the article were that, as a third-party application, it exists outside of the instructor's control and that there are no true moderation or chat regulation features. Just as in the previous study, Professor Huggins found messaging notifications disruptive and added two other important concerns – instances of academic dishonesty in group chats and the potential for toxic learning environments (i.e., negative venting and bullying) existing inside the group chat. (Huggins, 2025)

A complimentary perspective emerged in third investigation of GroupMe by the authors Jeff Carpenter and Tim Green. Carpenter & Green (2016) stated that at Elon University, a school known for its' commitment to engaging and experiential learning, students like to use GroupMe because, unlike other social networking apps, this tool does not clutter their feed with for-profit content. These students also use the app for schoolwork-related communication as well as club, sport team, and Greek organization event and activity planning and coordination. Being already familiar with image sharing, students use the app to post course-related images and, as part of a university mentorship program, to connect with their mentors. The article authors encourage other higher education faculty members to use GroupMe to extend in-class and after-class discussions and to encourage class participation from shy or introverted students who are uncomfortable voicing their opinions in face-to-face settings. The application weakness cited in the article is that the app does not have a voice element or a voice call feature such as present in Voxer or WhatsApp application. (Carpenter & Green, 2016)

Unconventional use of a GroupMe MIM application is highlighted in Odaro & Lim (2024), where the researchers used GroupMe to host a trivia activity to foster a sense of community in a medical student residency program. The group activity "Internal Medicine Trivia Thursdays" creators sent three to five curriculum-based trivia questions to each student every week via GroupMe. The activity met with a positive response and, as per the article, "residents reported experiencing enjoyment from interacting with their peers. There was a notable correlation between increased participation in the activity and sense of belonging in the program." (Odaro & Lim, p.367)

The Gunning (2021) research study took a different approach and analyzed a sample of 775 student chat messages to determine their content. In the study, Professor Gunning of Towson University divided the group chat messages into six categories based on their content and assigned a percentage value to each category. She determined that 60% of the group chat messages were of "low bonding" category and contained chatter, jokes, and "similar good-natured ribbing". (Gunning, 2021, p.75) The next largest chat message category was comprised of 11% of total messages and included questions about course content and administration. The messages belonging to a "Yellow Flag" category that could potentially be categorized as academic dishonesty or cheating, such as messages pointing to online answer sources or specific answer websites, comprised 2% of all group chat messages. (Gunning, 2021, p.75) Professor Gunning also speculated that, based on a larger number of GroupMe chat groups created by students in introductory-level classes, the students in introductory classes had a lower sense of confidence and were therefore more interested in building or becoming a part of a community via a GroupMe chat. (Gunning, 2021)

Next is not a study referencing a GroupMe app, but instead a WhatsApp, an instant messaging tool with a similar purpose and intention as GroupMe. In Roux & Parry (2021) research study, the researchers divided a cohort of higher education students into three groups: an academic instant messaging group (AIMG) study group, a formal AIMG (chat group created and facilitated by the course instructor), and a class AIMG (a chat group created by the students themselves for a specific college course).

Here are two self-explanatory quotations from this research study:

Our data indicate, firstly, that the average student simultaneously participates in a high number of AIMGs. Assuming a student is enrolled in six courses during the semester, the median number of simultaneous AIMGs he/she participates in is nine, of which six are class groups. (Roux & Parry, 2021, p.1073)

In class and formal groups, the use cases most commonly reported concern the communication of administrative information (formal AIMGs: 40.78%; class AIMGs: 46.68%) and the discussion of course content (formal AIMGs: 36.89%; class AIMGs: 36.74%), while for study groups the most frequently reported use case involved the coordination of group work (45.11%) followed by the discussion of course content (37.34%). (Roux & Parry, 2021, p. 1068)

The students' opinions regarding the three AIMG groups and the perceived impact of these three chat groups on their learning and academic performance are as follows:

It seems, based on these findings, that the two group types, while initiated and managed by different stakeholders, are perceived to serve very similar, primarily administrative functions with emphasis on the distribution of academic material and accurate administrative information. Study AIMGs, by contrast, are perceived as having a stronger impact on learning and academic performance, as well as students' management of academic stress. These findings suggest that students experience these smaller groups to play a more important role in their academic development, while formal and class AIMGs serve functions similar to an online bulletin board with the added affordances of mobility and immediacy. (Roux & Parry, 2021, p.1074)

As per this study findings, participation in both the class and formal chat groups positively predicted students' social experience as being a part of a learning community and, additionally, students perceived the study chat groups as contributing the most to their academic performance and wellbeing. (Roux & Parry, 2021)

Lastly, in Galliart et al. (2022) research study, researchers studied how GroupMe platform helped new doctoral students in a hybrid educational program maintain course engagement, build interpersonal relationships, and receive peer support. After a thematic analysis of GroupMe messages, the study researchers found that instant messaging helped new doctoral students establish social connections, receive peer support, and reduce coursework-related stress. The MIM platform allowed students "to have fun together, share their personal lives, celebrate each other, and encourage one another in real time." (Galliart et al., 2022, p.106)

Here are two article quotations that expand on the GroupMe impact on the doctoral students:

In this theme, we can see how GroupMe functioned to facilitate personal connections between online students. GroupMe enabled students to connect in the moment, generating energy (power) through conversations in real time. (Galliart et al., 2022, p.107)

While a lack of opportunity to informally discuss coursework may create a sense of detachment among online learners (Cornwall et al., 2019), in this study we see that using group messaging continuously connected students to their classes. A student enjoying a weekend getaway, for example, might still have seen a question from a peer about a course and responded to it. Moreover, that same student may have used GroupMe to share excitement about their weekend plans with other members of the cohort, thereby building personal relationships with their peers. (Galliart et al., 2022, p.108)

In summary, the collective evidence from the studies above indicates that the best most effective use of GroupMe instant messaging tool in a higher education setting is as follows:

For undergraduate and graduate college and university students, GroupMe is best utilized to form peer-to-peer course study groups or support groups, to reduce academic stress due to greater collaboration and interaction with peers, to extend after-class discussion of course content, to obtain help and guidance regarding course organization or course materials, to foster interpersonal relationships outside the classroom with students with similar interests or in the same field of study, for personal development and to increase extroversion traits, and for coordination and organization of on-campus clubs and extracurricular activities.

For faculty and higher education administrators, GroupMe is best utilized as a "bulletin board" to instantly share with the students course calendar, events, and course materials, to create study groups, to host classroom trivia and other gamified classroom activities, to encourage classroom camaraderie and socialization, for class management and to resolve administrative issues, to extend after-class group discussions and to provide introverted students with an opportunity to voice their opinions, and also for mentorship program discussion and activities.

While utilizing creative learning environment design and remaining aware of and taking necessary steps to reduce instances of academic dishonesty and toxic group atmosphere, appropriate and prudent use of instant messaging tools like GroupMe, can help tertiary institutions foster a sense of belonging and community among students, promote effective and immediate student-to-faculty communication, reduce students' academic stress, and assist college faculty in class management and administration – all very worthwhile pursuits by higher education faculty, administration, and students.

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