Effect of Social Media on the Academic Performance of Students
Chapter One
Research objectives
Kumar (2005) asserts that research objectives refer to what researcher studies for. The research objectives are categorized into two categories that are the main or general objective and sub objectives or specific objectives. Kumar says main objectives are what the research has thrust to conduct research while sub objectives identify the specific issues researcher proposes to examine. The objective should be clear stated the main aim of the researcher to conduct research as well as specific issue.
General objective
To examine the impacts of social media networks to secondary school students in their academic performance.
Specific objectives
- To find out the time spent by students in social media networks ¾ To find out what are the most social media that are frequently used.
- To investigate the reason for students log in into social media networks.
CHAPTER TWO:
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This chapter shows the empirical literature, theoretical literature review and the gap existing in the literature review.
Empirical Literature Review
Ahmed as quoted by Brubaker, (2013), Social media is defined as Internet networks that provide an online community for users to interact in a fast, convenient manner. Within social media networks, users are able to create profiles, share information, and view other users’ comments,
Camilia, Ibrahim and Dalhatu (2013), discuss the history of SNSs that dates back to the late 1990s, suggesting that they are not as new as they may appear in the first place. With the emergence of SNSs such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc, overall SNS usage has accelerated in such a way that they are considered a global consumer phenomenon. Social networking sites are the latest online communication tool that allows users to create a public or private profile to interact with people in their networks.
With so many social networking sites displayed on the internet, students are tempted to abandon their homework and reading times in preference for chatting online with friends. Many students are now addicted to the online rave of the moment, with Facebook, Twitter etc. Today most youths and students possess Facebook accounts. The reason your ward is performing badly in school might not be far- fetched. While your mind might be quick to blame the poor quality of teachers, you might have to think even harder, if you have not heard of the Facebook frenzy.
These days’ students are so engrossed in the social media that they are almost 24 hours online. Even in classrooms and lecture theatres, it has been observed that some students are always busy pinging, 2going or Facebooking, while lectures are on. (Miah and Omar, 2012)
Times that ought be channeled towards learning, academic research and innovating have been crushed by the passion for meeting new friends online, and most times busy discussing trivial issues. Hence most students’ academics suffer setback as a result of distraction from the social media. It was observed that the use of these sites also affects students’ use of English and grammar. The students are used to short forms of writing words in their chat rooms; they forget and use the same in the classrooms. They use things like 4 in place of for, U in place of You, D in place of The etc. and this could affect their class assessment, (Camilia, Ibrahim & Dalhatu 2013)
Miah, Omar and Golding 2012 quoted Fodeman and Monroe, focus on the social network of Facebook and why students should not use the website. The authors gave eight reasons to support their claim. Some include time usage, false sense of privacy, scams targeting teens, the unawareness of how they are being marketed, lack of social interaction and unethical behaviors. These indicators, although not measured through scientific study, should cause major concern among parents of adolescent children who use the social network. Since Facebook is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week, these teens, who have minimal to no responsibilities, may not be responsible in accessing and monitoring their time on the social networking sites, thus affecting their studies and grades.
Another concern the authors expressed is how the young students are being targeted without realizing it. Their lack of experience on Internet sites causes them to fall prey to contacting often non-repairable viruses on the computer systems. An important aspect of this claim is the absence of privacy awareness by young adults.
CHAPTER THREE:
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter consists of the research approach, research design, sampling, research methods, data recording and data analysis and the ethical considerations.
Research Approach
This study uses quantitative approach and it takes survey as a research design, in the sampling procedures it will use probability sampling and in the data collection methods questionnaire will be used.
Research Design
Survey design
Is the situation where the data are collected predominantly by self –completion questionnaire, or by structure interview on more than one case and at the single time in order to collect a body of quantitative or quantifiable data in collection of two or more variables which are then determined to detect the pattern of relationship between variables (Bryman, 2008.)
The choice of this design is based on its merits like economic and efficient, it represent a wide target of population, it provide descriptive and explanatory information, it provide correlation between variables and it develops statistical patterns that can be used to generate a theory from
Morrison cited in by Cohen and Morris 2007
Sampling
Sampling involves the selection of a number of study units from a defined study population. The population is too large for researcher to consider collecting information from all its members therefore the researcher selects a sample of individuals to represent the large population in the study (Degu and Yigzaw 2006).
Study Area
This study is conducted in Osun state Nigeria and the two schools which are studied are Ilobu Commercial Grammar School and Ima High School. The research scope is social media networks because Nigeria is facing the rapid growth of social media networks. The study involves students from these two secondary schools located at Ilobu L.G.A where youth are the most users of social media.
Moreover, the topic of the impacts of social media to secondary school students is researchable at those areas due to the presence of students who are the majority among the youth using social media.
Population
Population refers to an entire group of persons or elements that have at least one thing in common (Kombo and Tromp, 2006) Thus, population refers to a large group from which the sample is taken.
The population of this study is secondary school students from Ilobu Commercial Grammar School and Ima High School, Ilobu. The population is chosen because of the representativeness of these students to other students in Osun state who uses social media networks.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION
Introduction
This chapter presents the data and interprets the research findings which sought to examine the impact of social media to secondary school students. The research objectives of the study were to find out the time spent by students in social media networks, to find out what are the most social media that are frequently used and to investigate the reason for students log in into social media networks.
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
Introduction
The objective of this study is to assess the impact of social media networks to secondary school students. The use of social media networks by secondary school student can have the noticeable positive or negative impacts to students. This can be due to the usage of it whether student use it in a positive way like learning other stuffs from different sites, chatting with academicians or using it in a negative way like chatting with friends on non educational matters, posting pictures and videos that have a bad taste and creating groups which have no educational content. This objective of the study is accompanied by finding the time spent by students in social media networks, finding out what are the most social media that are frequently used by them and to investigate the reasons which push them to use social media networks.
To find out the time spent by students in social media networks
Reviewing the work of Graphicsms, and Rideout Froeschle, Crews and Li. (2013), says the data reflect the enormous appeal social networking sites have on young people. It is reported that 22% of social networking users range in age from 13 to 17 years old also found social networking to be the most popular computer activity for students ranging in age from 8-18. For instance, 40% of 8 to 18-year-olds spent approximately one hour per day on social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook.
Social networking sites have captured the interest of many adolescents and young adults. Recent reports on the prevalence of online activities indicate that the majority of U.S. adolescents and young adults utilize social networking sites and that the number of memberships increases with age.
Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, as cited by Tiffany,Pempek, Yevdokiya, Yermolayeva, and Sandra Calvert (2009), says, Spending time on social networking sites appears to be part of most U.S. young adults’ daily activities. In one study, U.S. college students reported using Facebook an average of 10 to 30 min daily. Another study found that about half of 12–17 year olds with social networking site memberships log on daily: 22% logged on to social networking sites several times per day, 26% once a day,17% three to five days perweek,15% one or two days per week, and only 20% every few weeks or less.
This study observes that students do not spend too much time in social media networks compared to their academic schedules. 71% of students do not use a lot of time compared to 29% of students who spend a lot of time in the social media networks. This show that 71%of students use less than two hours in social media compared to 29% who use more than two hours per day in social media networks.
To find out what are the most social media that are frequently used.
According to the study done by Bicen and Cavus. (2010), The study showed that more students use Facebook and YouTube than any other social media platform. Blogs, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn had significantly lower amounts of student users. Students from the business school had the highest percentage of users of blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn while liberal arts students were the highest percentage of MySpace users.
Due to the recency of WhatsApp in Nigeria, it got many users because of its operations like sending instant pictures, videos, messages even audio messages are sent compared to Facebook and twitter. The use of smart phones which contains so many applications made it easier for students to select which kind of application to use.
The findings of the study shows that WhatsApp is the most frequently used social media followed by Facebook, Twitter Instagram and other social media. This is to show that WhatsApp which is the recent social media is used by youth compared to Facebook which is there for a long time.
To investigate the reason for students log in into social media networks.
Social networking sites are designed to foster social interaction in a virtual environment. In general, communication is facilitated through information posted in the profile which often includes a photograph of the member and personal information describing his or her interests, both of which provide information about one’s identity. Members can view one another’s profiles and can communicate through various applications similar to email or online message boards.
Such interactions can potentially address many concerns of adolescence and emerging adulthood, such as the need for friendship and peer feedback, (Tiffany, Pempek, Yevdokiya, Yermolayeva, and Sandra Calvert 2009).
Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, as quoted by Tiffany, Pempek, Yevdokiya, Yermolayeva, and Sandra Calvert (2009). A recent survey of college students in the U.S. showed that social networking sites are used for social interaction with offline acquaintances in order to maintain friendships rather than to make new friends. In fact, these authors found a strong positive relationship between Facebook use and social capital, or the resources gained through social interactions. Surveys of teens and college students with social networking site memberships reveal that youth primarily use these sites to stay in touch with friends they see often and those whom they see rarely. In addition, about half of teens use social networking sites to make new friends and about half of college students use them to let others “know about me” (Tiffany et al 2009)
“I use Facebook because it is a good way to keep me informed as far as who my friends are interacting and associating with as well as what they are up to.”
“Through Facebook, I can communicate through messages, wall posts, and even events. I have been able to sustain so many friendships through Facebook, which is the biggest reason why I use it.” “Signing a Facebook wall is a lot easier and less time consuming than picking up the phone to call a friend. Not many in college have the time for that.” (Tiffany et al 2009 p 256)
The findings of this study shows that most reason which pushes students to use social media networks is talking to their friends on different issues rather than studying. This shows that most students like to chat rather than studying.
Recommendation
Teachers
School administrations should create a technology policy that prohibits students from using social media networks at school.
Attention should also be paid to ethical versus unethical behaviors and how to protect security and privacy information because the percentage which students do not know about the security and privacy of information is little bit high.
In order to maintain a professional image and avoid “friending” students on a personal level, the researcher suggests establishing a professional school page rather than an individual page. All information on the page should relate to school counseling activities and be approved by the school principal in advance.
Also according to the findings 41% and 36% of students use WhatsApp and Facebook respectively, teachers can adopt these social media networks to use them for education purpose with their students thus it could create a great interaction between teachers and students because the existing interaction is among students themselves. Teachers can promote an ethical behavior of using social networks if it can be monitored.
Students
Time management is also a very crucial thing to be considered by students. This is due to most of them spends more than two hours in social media than concentrating in their studies. If schools can help cut the time that students spend on these social networking sites by blocking the websites, or giving them a lot of homework to do, it could help students become more focused on their academic issues while at school and home. Most of students reported that they are spending too much time on social websites; and 32% reported that they feel that these social media have negative impacts to them. There also needs to be awareness among students about what social media networks are and the possible consequences of incorrect use of social media networks.
Parents and Guardians
Also parents or guardians should make sure that they keep an eye on their children concerning educational matters and the use of social media networks. Parents or guardians could have a clue that his or her kid is using a social media like Facebook or WhatsApp so he or she must set parental guidance on those social media so that a student could concentrate on studies not in social media.
Conclusion
The rise of social networking has increased dramatically in recent years, causing questions as to how young adolescent students are adjusting to this shift and means of communication, since it is the norm for their generation.
Findings show that a higher number of respondents spending more time on playing video games. Indeed, 45 percent of respondents used to play video game for one hour and two hours, while 33 percent of them were spending more than two hours playing video games per day.
As far as the findings of the study is concerned, spending a higher percentage of time on video games there is not enough time left to spend in studies. Thus the study found that there was not a single significant positive correlation between gaming and academic performance.
REFERENCES
- Adenubi, O.S, Olalekan, Y.S, Afolabi, A.A, Opeoluwa, A.S (2013). Online Social Networking and the Academic Achievement of University Students. The experience of Selected Nigerian Universities. Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Vol3 No5.
- Bicen.H, Cavus.N. (2010). The most preferred social network Sites by students. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences. Surfed from www.sciencedirect.com
- Blumler, J. G. & Katz, E. (1974). The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research. CA: SAGE.
- Brown,J.E(1994). How to Write a Rationale. Saginaw Valley State: University of Michigan
- Brubaker, E.V (2013).The relationship between FacebookTM Activity and Academic Performance among African American Students, Lynchburg. Liberty University.
