Academic Editor: Andreu Casero-Ripollés Received: 20 December 2024 Revised: 9 March 2025 Accepted: 12 March 2025 Published: 18 March 2025 Citation: Romero-Saritama, Jose Miguel, Sandra Espinosa-Tapia, and Antonio Palacios-Rodríguez. 2025. Using WhatsApp in Distance Education: Assessing the Impact on Academic Interaction and Influencing Factors. Social Sciences 14: 183. https://doi.org/10.3390/ socsci14030183 Copyright: © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). Article Using WhatsApp in Distance Education: Assessing the Impact on Academic Interaction and Influencing Factors Jose Miguel Romero-Saritama 1 , Sandra Espinosa-Tapia 2, * and Antonio Palacios-Rodríguez 3, * 1 Department of Biological and Agricultural Sciences, Private Technical University of Loja, Loja 110107, Ecuador; jmromero@utpl.edu.ec 2 Department of Chemistry, Private Technical University of Loja, Loja 110107, Ecuador 3 Department of Didactics and Educational Organization, University of Seville, 41013 Seville, Spain * Correspondence: sandraespinosa100@hotmail.com (S.E.-T.); aprodriguez@us.es (A.P.-R.) Abstract: WhatsApp has gained relevance in distance higher education due to its accessibil- ity and ease of use, making it a valuable tool for academic support. This study analyzes the use of WhatsApp in this context, considering sociodemographic variables and factors such as subject and group size. The sample included 127 students from an Ecuadorian university, belonging to two subjects from different areas. With a multivariate quantitative approach, this study evaluated the dimensions of management, communication and interaction, learn- ing, and the relevance and benefits of using WhatsApp. The data were analyzed using Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests and a K-means clustering analysis. The results show a positive assessment of the use of WhatsApp (mean of 4.48/5), highlighting the academic benefits, especially its innovative and practical effect. Smaller groups presented a more favorable assessment, and women reported a greater inclination towards some key dimensions. The clustering analysis identified three groups of students with differentiated assessments. These findings suggest that WhatsApp, as a support tool in distance educa- tion, not only facilitates academic interaction, but also responds to the specific needs of students, its effectiveness being dependent on group size and other student characteristics. Keywords: online education; academic communication; digital learning tools; digital interaction; technological innovation; WhatsApp 1. Introduction Distance education is an educational modality in which students and teachers are physically and/or temporally separated, interacting through various technological means and resources to facilitate the teaching–learning process (García 2021). This modality has helped reduce geographical inequality in access to higher education, providing students with the opportunity to study without time or location constraints. Additionally, it allows them to balance work, family life, and studies (Östlund 2009; Wiitavaara and Widar 2025). However, distance higher education has shown a lower retention rate compared to face-to-face education, leading to various economic and social challenges for both students and universities (Wiitavaara and Widar 2025). The difficulties that students face in this modality have been widely studied. Altun et al. (2021) argue that distance education does not always guarantee effective learning, while other studies have identified issues such as difficulties in carrying out group work (Adnan and Anwar 2020; Bozavlı 2021) and academic overload due to the large number of tasks and activities to be completed (Nenakhova 2021). Moreover, students may experience a sense of abandonment, especially when they do not receive immediate responses from Soc. Sci. 2025, 14, 183 https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14030183