The Impact of Social Media on Students’ Academic Performance Among Senior High Students in Enugu
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are;
- To examine whether students make use of social media.
- To study how much time does students spend on social media.
- To find out the usefulness of social media to students.
- To know the nature of activities which students engage on social media.
- To examine if social media influence students’ academic performance.
- To know the impact of social media on the social lives of students.
- To study the type of social media which students prefer to use.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
Junco (2011) identifies that today we live in the time of the social web, an interactive, engaging, and democratizing space where social capital- the resources obtained through interpersonal interactions- is of great importance. Alongside the expansion of the social web came a generation of students, who have never known life without the technologies that many have to depend on. This mobile technology makes it easier for kids to fit whatever they want to access in their pockets, while making it more difficult for parents to monitor what their kids are doing. The early descriptive and ethnographic research on youth, Internet, and social media offer rich evidence that (a) the features of different platforms, for example, the MySpace Top 8 case, influence the social practices of youth within those online communities, (b) Social Networking Sites (SNS) are important places for youth to develop their personal identity, and (c) youth use technologies like SNS to mediate their relationships with friends, romantic partners, and broader groups of peers (Ito et al., 2009). Subrahmanyam and Greenfield (2008) observed that the lines between the virtual and real world is increasingly blurred for youth today: “…for today’s youth, media technologies are an important social variable where physical and virtual worlds are psychologically connected; consequently, the virtual world serves as a playing ground for developmental issues from the physical world”. The key questions for the field of youth and Social Networking Sites (SNS) focus on what is the emotional, social, and cognitive effects of using the technology are for adolescents. In 1995, it was estimated that only 11% of American teenagers were actively participating on social networking websites (Peter & Valkenburg, 2009). College-aged individuals are especially interested in having a lot of friends, because many worry what others will think if they do not have as many friends as their peers (Barker, 2009). Statistic have shown from the study done on visual impression management and social networking sites that approximately 60% of students do spend more time selecting which pictures to post on their profile than actually communicating with others (Siibak, 2009).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought the impact of social media on students’ academic performance among of senior high students
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected from the respondents were analyzed in tabular form with simple percentage for easy understanding.
A total of 133(one hundred and thirty three) questionnaires were distributed and 133 questionnaires were returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the impact of social media on students’ academic performance among of senior high students. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of social media on academic performance of secondary school students
Summary
This study was on the impact of social media on students’ academic performance among of senior high students. Seven objectives were raised which included: To examine whether students make use of social media, to study how much time does students spend on social media, to find out the usefulness of social media to students, to know the nature of activities which students engage on social media, to examine if social media influence students’ academic performance, to know the impact of social media on the social lives of students, to study the type of social media which students prefer to use. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 students of selected secondary schools in Enugu state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made sss iii students, sss ii students, sss i students and jss iii were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies.
Conclusion
In this study, our results indicated that majority of the secondary school students used MSNs sites for different purposes other than learning related activities. It is also found that, Facebook is the most frequently used MSNs by the respondents. Similarly, majority of the students also confirmed that, they are addicted to MSNs sites in the sense that, they cannot spend any day without accessing their accounts. Moreover, mobile phones contributed immensely in providing easy access to MSNs services among secondary school students in Enugu state
Recommendation
Therefore based on the findings of this research work, we made the following recommendations:
- Secondary school teachers should provide adequate knowledge and skills to the students on how to use MSNs sites to enhance their learning related activities.
- Parents should monitor their children at home on the excessive usage of mobile phones for social connections.
- MSNs features should be properly investigated in order to provide broader learning opportunities for the students
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