The Influence of Social Media on Students’ Academic Performance Among University Students in Ghana; a Case Study of Tamale Technical University.
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the study
The objectives of the study are to investigate the influence of social media on students’ academic performance among university students in Ghana. A case study of Tamale Technical University. The specific objectives are;
- To examine the level of student addictiveness to social media and the influence on their academic performance in Tamale Technical University.
- To determine the social media network that the students are more exposed to and the influence on their academic performance in Tamale Technical University.
- To ascertain how the use of social media has influence the academic performance of the students Tamale Technical University.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Concept of social media
Social media is that means that employs mobile and web based technology to create highly interactive platforms via which individuals and community share, co-create, discuss and modifies user-generated content (Kietzmannn, 2012). Social media is a phrase being tossed around a lot. It is a website that does not just give you information but interact with you while giving you information. It is a group of internet based application that allows the creation and exchange of users generated content. It is easy to confuse social media with social news because we often refer to members of the news as the media. Adding to it, that social news site is also social media site. Some media website includes:
- Social Bookmarking: interact by tagging website and searching through website book marked by others (Blink list, simple).
- Social News: interact by voting for articles and commenting on them (Digg, propello). Social Networking: interact by adding friends, commenting on photo and profiles, sharing groups for discussions (Facebook, 2go, BB chat)
- Social Photo and Video Sharing: interact by sharing photos or videos and commenting on the user submission. (Youtube and Fliki). Wikis: interact by adding articles and editing existing articles. (Wikipedia, wikia).
- Social media refers to the means of interaction among people in which they create, share, exchange and comment among themselves in different networks.
Andreas and Michael (2010) are of the opinion that social media is a group of internet based application that builds on the ideological foundation and allows the creation and exchange of users – generated content. Social media has become one of the major channel of chatting through platforms such as 2go, BB chat, blogger and wiki a. There has been an increase in the mobile social media which has created new opportunity for browsing. The internet usage effect of social media, in views of Nielsen (2012) is that, students continue to spend more time on the social media than any site. The total time spent on social media across mobile devices increased by 37%, 121 billion minutes in July 2012 compared to 88 billion minutes in July 2011. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) classified social media into six different classes as follows:
- Collaborative Project (Wikipedia)
- Blogs and Micro blogs (Twitter)
- Content Communities (Youtube)
- Social Networking Site (Facebook; 2go; BB chat)
- Virtual Game World (World of war craft) 6. Virtual Second World (Second life) Technology includes the blogs, picture sharing, music sharing, crowd sourcing, e-mail, instant messaging and voice over. These services could be integrated via social network aggregation platforms.
Mobile Social Media
When social media is used in combination with mobile devices, it is called mobile social media. Social media is a group of mobile marketing application that allows the creation and exchange of users generated content. Due to the fact that mobile social media runs on mobile devices, it differs from traditional social media as it incorporates new factors such as the current location of the user, time delay between sending and receiving. According to Kaplan (2002), social media can be divided into four types:
Space-timers (location and time sensitive): exchange of message with relevance for specific location and time (Face book, 2go, BB chat).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter presents the method and procedure that was applied in this study. It was organized under the following sub-headings: Research Design, Population of the Study, Sample and Sampling Technique, Research Instrument, Validity of the Instrument, Reliability of the Instrument, Method of Data Collection, and Method of Data Analysis
Research Design
The research design adopted for the study was a descriptive survey. This design is considered apt because it enables the researcher to generate data through the standardized collection procedures based on highly structured research instrument(s) and well defined study concepts and related variables.
Population of the Study
The population in this research are all the full time undergraduate students in the Tamale Technical University, Ghana. The total population comprised 24,661 undergraduate full time students.
Sample and Sampling Technique
A total sample size of 378 students were randomly selected using confidence interval of 5 and confidence level of 95% (0.05) from the total population of 24,661 full-time students in the Tamale Technical University.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
Introduction
This chapter presents the results and discussions from this study in three sections under the following subheadings:
- Presentation of Demographic Data
- Analysis of Data and Testing of Hypotheses
- Discussion of Findings
ANALYSIS OF DATA AND TESTING OF HYPOTHESES
In testing the hypotheses stated, the researcher used chi-square(X2) inferential statistics.
Hypothesis 1: Students’ addictiveness to social network has no significant influence on their academic performance in Tamale Technical University.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In this chapter, the summary of the study, recommendations and conclusions are presented.
Summary of the Study
This study investigated social media and academic performance of the students in Tamale technical University. The descriptive survey research design was adopted in the study. A sample of 378 respondents was selected from a population of 24,661 full time undergraduate students in the selected university using confidence interval of 5 and confidence level of 95% (0.05).A simple random sampling technique was used for the selection, where seventy five (75) students were randomly selected from five (5) randomly selected faculties in the Tamale Technical University. A self-developed Likert-type scale titled “influence of social media on student academic performance Questionnaire (ISMSAPQ)” thoroughly scrutinized by the project supervisor was used for data collection. The instrument was validated and found to be reliable. It was personally administered by the researcher. The data collected were analyzed with the use of descriptive statistics of frequency count and percentage, and the hypotheses were tested using the inferential statistics of Chi-square (χ²) at 0.05 level of significance.
The results obtained showed that, Students’ addictiveness to social network has a significant influence on their academic performance; Student’s exposure to social media network has significant influence on students’ academic performance and Use of social media has significant influence on the academic performance of the students.
Conclusion
The result from the findings of this study showed that, though Social media have negative effects on teenagers such as lack of privacy, distracting students from their academic work, taking most of their productive time, and such like, they also have benefits and can be used appropriately. For instance, students can form online communities in order to plan for a project, have group discussions about class material, or use the Social networking sites(SNS) as a way to keep in contact when a student who has been absent needs to be updated on current academic information.
The findings of this study and earlier ones showed some noteworthy results. The first independent variable influencing the academic performance of students, that is, social media participation was negatively related with students’ outcome, while the other independent variables were positively related with students’ outcome. The results of this study suggest that lecturers should come up with a template on how their students can maximize the benefits of Social media, that school management should incorporate rules and regulations on the use of the social media in the school and, that the government should put in place adequate control measures to regulate their use among students and lecturers.
Recommendation
- Students should be educated on the influence of Social media on their academic performance.
- Students should be monitored by teachers and parents on how they use these sites.
- Teachers should ensure they use the social media as a tool to improve the academic performance of students in schools
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