In the same boat: social support in online peer groups for career counseling
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RESEARCH PAPER
In the same boat: social support in online peer groups for career counseling Annette Felgenhauer 1 & Katharina Kaufmann 1 & Julia Klier 2 & Mathias Klier 1 Received: 13 August 2018 / Accepted: 20 July 2019 # Institute of Applied Informatics at University of Leipzig 2019
Abstract The success and growth of online peer groups has evoked interest in their potential to provide support for their members who share similar challenges. While there is a growing body of knowledge in this field, there is still a lack of understanding social support in online peer groups for career counseling, a prevention for youth unemployment. The unique dataset underlying our explorative study contains messages written by pupils in online peer groups for career counseling at the German Federal Employment Agency. Applying content analysis and logistic regression analysis we analyze which types of social support arise in the online peer groups depending on peers’ characteristics. We show that the online peer groups provide types of social support traditional one-on-one counseling cannot offer. Our analysis indicates that depending on peers’ gender and average school grade, the prevalence of the different types of social support changes. To a smaller extent this is also the case for differences in migration background. Our results contribute to a better understanding of social support in online peer groups for career counseling to address youth unemployment. Keywords Social support . Online peer groups . Content analysis JEL classification M10
Introduction “Birds of a feather flock together.” This saying aptly describes the core idea of a phenomenon with a long history: peer groups (Welch-Cline 1999; Barak et al. 2008). Interest in peer Responsible Editor: Markus Bick * Mathias Klier [email protected] Annette Felgenhauer [email protected] Katharina Kaufmann [email protected] Julia Klier [email protected] 1
Institute of Technology and Process Management, University of Ulm, Helmholtzstraße 22, 89081 Ulm, Germany
2
Department of Management Information Systems, University of Regensburg, Universitätsstraße 31, 93053 Regensburg, Germany
groups has generated a rich body of literature in disciplines from psychology, economics, and communication to IT adoption and use (Agarwal et al. 2009). Peer groups are defined as “voluntary, small group structures for mutual aid and the accomplishment of a special purpose. They are usually formed by peers who have come together for mutual assistance in satisfying a common need, overcoming a common handicap or life-disrupting problem, and bringing about desired social and/or personal change” (Katz and Bender 1976, p. 278). In contrast to other groups or communities like communities of practice, peer groups focus on helping and are the primary environmental influence on psychological functioning (Vandell 2000). A well-known example of peer groups are the Alcoholics Anonymous (Barak et al. 2008). Their members are all in a similar situation with so
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