THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON STUDENTS LEARNING ABILITY AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS
ABSTRACT
The study looked at the impact of social media on secondary school students’ learning abilities in the Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State. The study was guided by five research questions and five corresponding hypotheses. For the study, a descriptive survey research design was used. A total of 250 students (125 boys and girls, respectively) were chosen from ten secondary schools in the study population using a stratified and simple random sampling strategy.
The data for the study was gathered using a 25-item Likert type questionnaire titled ‘Social Media and Students’ Learning Ability Questionnaire (ISMSLAQ) and Student Achievement Test in English Language.’ The Chi Square statistics were used to test hypotheses one, two, and three, while the t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to test hypotheses four and five, respectively.
The study’s findings show that social media has a significant influence on students’ attitudes toward learning in schools, as well as a significant influence on students’ writing skills. Other study findings include a significant influence of social media usage on academic performance of students in secondary schools, no significant gender difference in social media usage among students in the area of study, and no significant influence of social media usage on the age of adolescents.
Based on the research findings, recommendations were made, including the need to integrate social media with academic lesson content in secondary schools, the need for students to follow the formal way of writing in schools, and students should not be allowed to waste their time for reading and personal study on social media content generating sites.
Counseling programs in the use of social media should be implemented for both male and female students. There is also a need to develop appropriate behavioral change instructional materials to educate students of various ages about the use of social media in academic learning.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1The Study’s Background
Many educational activities, both formal and non-formal, necessitate the ability to learn. This is because individual survival, adaptation, and adjustment to ever-changing environmental circumstances will be dependent on an individual’s ability to learn.
A number of leading learning authorities have declared that learning involves mental activity, whether or not it is conscious effort on the part of the learner. It is a complex process in which knowledge, skills, habits, facts, ideas, and principles are acquired, retained, and applied in order to adapt to one’s environment and, when necessary, modify existing behaviors.
It should be noted, however, that an individual’s learning ability frequently depends on the quality of potential inherited from his or her parents. Although nature provides the raw materials in the form of human potential / abilities, the environment determines the extent to which these potentials are realized (Nwadinigwe, 2004).
The work of new media literacy researchers, on the other hand, provides one avenue for better specifying behaviors that may lead to learning. The majority of studies on social media and youth education define learning as literacy perceptive learning (Greenhow and Ahn, 2011).
The literacy perspective emphasizes learning practices such as media creation over traditional measures of learning such as grades or standardized tests. It is critical to understand the concept of literacy practices from this perspective.
According to these experts, children’s activities in school, such as listening to a teacher’s lesson, practicing problems on worksheets, and taking tests to assess learning, can be considered specialized literacy practices; those of creating media, on the other hand, serve very different functions than those expected in the classroom. In any case, learning in school has a more measurable goal than social media.
Meanwhile, because technology is such an important part of adolescent students’ lives, social media usage is an intriguing platform to investigate. This is because today’s students are born into a world where computer technology is already well established, and it is thus a common tool that students use in their daily lives.
This includes how they receive information, communicate with others, and learn. There is no denying that today’s students are a hyper-test-based generation, as opposed to the chalk-and-talk environment in which most adults learned. One would think that the introduction of computers, the internet, and cell phones would improve students’ ability to learn and improve their knowledge, skills, and attitude.
It is quite disturbing that students are preoccupied with creating social media content that has nothing to do with their school learning rather than reading and studying to increase their knowledge, skill, and attitude. As a result, students are gradually becoming too lazy to engage in normal book reading and study habits in order to adequately prepare for their examinations. Social media usage among students is alarming and has now become a source of concern around the world, attracting numerous studies.
Although there is a wealth of research examining the impact of social media usage on students’ learning in Nigeria, there is a gap in the research as it relates to university students. A few studies have mentioned how social media use among
students is increasing, which may or may not be related to mental, knowledge, experiential, skill, and attitude learning. There appears to be little or no mention of the impact of social media on students’ learning ability in Alimosho Local Government Lagos State public secondary schools. This study fills a gap in the literature.
Most undeniably, social media usage may be influencing how learners interact with technology in general. Adeogun (2004) observed that information received by students via computer, television, and telephone can either negatively or positively modify the behavior of individual students.
Depending on the degree of observation allowed the socializing individual and the type of imitation he or she can have of the models’ behaviors and attitudes, the information can generate new responses or change old ones. Given that the forces of development are primarily within the individual, as previously stated, the environment plays a
secondary role in the process of natural enfoldment of that which nature has enfolded within the individual in a natural environment free of corruption. In essence, if the information is positive and conducive, the individual will develop positively and behave rationally, whereas if the information is negative, the development may be detrimental.
Unquestionably, social media use causes students to procrastinate while attempting to complete homework and assignments, negatively impacting their learning ability. The knowledge of Economics on opportunity cost is such that a student who chooses social media will trade-off traditional learning.
Social media use has been shown in the academic literature to make students passive during classroom teaching and learning. It also causes students to be lazy and procrastinate on their homework or assignments. We cannot throw the baby out with the dirty water.
The positive aspects of social media are that they provide opportunities for students to learn more because the platform allows and encourages students to post their schoolwork, thereby increasing their eagerness to learn. For lack of space, literature is replete with a plethora of educational opportunities made available by social media.
Furthermore, the frequency with which students use social media raises concerns about the potential impact of social media on students’ mental learning in schools. Several of the above-mentioned researchers have reported that social media use is frivolous, wastes time, and distracts from schoolwork.
Students appear to use social media for social interaction rather than academic purposes. As a result, social media appears to be having no impact on students’ mental or knowledge learning in schools. This is reflected in how students write and spell words that are not properly spelled in English.
Texting and short messages used on social media by students during internal and external examinations may result in students failing such examinations. Against this backdrop, the study investigates the effects of social media on secondary school students’ learning ability in Alimosho Local Government Area, Lagos State.
1.2 Formulation of the Problem
The problem that prompted the study is the rate at which students forego academic learning in favor of social media content-generating sites such as Facebook and 2go, among others. The use of social media has become so pervasive that it raises a slew of questions.
The situation is not only upsetting for all education stakeholders, but also quite alarming. This highlights the importance of addressing social media challenges in students’ cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. If nothing is done to stem the tide right now, long-term damage will be done. This will be detrimental to our country’s education system because the necessary manpower to address the challenges of our socioeconomic development will be lacking.
Currently, it appears that the majority of students who arrive at school with internet access pay more attention to social media interactions than to academic learning. Reading and studying time may appear to be taken up by social media interactions that have no bearing on their cognitive, affective, and psychomotor development.
This could have a devastating impact on students’ ability to learn. This has the potential to worsen poor student outcomes in schools. This is not good for our country’s education, which is trying to find a way out of its current quagmire.
With the current rate of social media usage among students, one can predict that if the neglect of textbooks and learned journals is not addressed, more of our library’s textbooks and journals will be completely forgotten in a short period of time. This is yet another threat to our country’s academic survival.
Furthermore, the popularity of social media and the rapidity with which information is disseminated appears to foster a lax attitude toward proper spelling and grammar. This could be exported to traditional writing, reducing students’ ability to write effectively without relying on a computer’s spell check feature.
Worse, students’ poor performance in external examinations, which has been increasing year after year, may be linked to students’ reading and studying time spent on social media interactions among students. This will highlight the importance of researching the impact of social media on secondary school adolescents’ learning ability in Alimosho Local Government Area.
1.3 Purpose of the Research
The primary goal of this research is to investigate the impact of social media on adolescents’ learning abilities in secondary schools in Alimosho Local Government, Lagos State. The study’s specific objectives are as follows:
1. Investigate the impact of social media usage on students’ attitudes toward school-based learning.
2. Determine the impact of social media usage on secondary school students’ writing abilities. in secondary education
3. Determine the impact of social media usage on secondary school students’ academic performance.
4. Determine whether there are gender differences in social media usage among secondary school students.
5. Determine the age-related influence of social media usage.
1.4 Questions for Further Research
This research study was guided by the following questions:
1. What effect does social media use have on students’ attitudes toward schoolwork?
2. How does social media affect secondary school students’ writing skills?
3. What effect does social media use have on secondary school students’ academic performance?
4. Are there gender differences in social media usage among secondary school students?
5. How does age affect students’ use of social media in secondary schools?
1.5 Hypotheses for Research
This research study was guided by the null hypotheses listed below.
1. Social media use has no discernible impact on students’ attitudes toward school-based learning.
2. There is no discernible impact of social media use on students’ writing skills in secondary schools.
3. Social media use has no discernible impact on students’ academic performance.
4. There is no significant gender difference in social media usage among secondary school students.
5. Age has no significant influence on secondary school students’ use of social media for learning.
1.6 Importance of the research
The study will be useful to students, teachers, parents, educational psychologists, and policymakers interested in current social media trends in the following ways: The study will inform students that, when used wisely, social media can help them improve their learning ability and schoolwork performance.
The study will assist teachers in gaining additional knowledge on current issues in student social media usage and determining appropriate measures to assist students in maximizing gain on these media for academic attainment. It will also open parents’ eyes to the difficulties their students face when using social media in relation to their physical and cognitive development, as well as their academic performance levels.
This study will be useful to guidance and counselors in determining how to help adolescent students cope with the challenges of social media and social networking that suit education and control access to bad social media sites that affect students’ educational attainment. This study will also lay the groundwork for future research in this area. The research is useful in the following ways there:
1. Students will benefit from the study because it will expose them to the educational benefits as well as the disadvantages of using social media.
2. Teachers will gain knowledge of social media issues and incorporate them into their educational endeavors.
3. Parents will benefit from the research because they will know how to guide their children’s use of social media.
4. Guidance and counselors will benefit from the research because it will assist them in developing a behavioral change education program for social media users in secondary schools.
1.7 Scope of the Research
The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of social media on the learning abilities of secondary school adolescents in the Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos State. It aims to ascertain the extent to which adolescent (male and female) students use social networks, as well as the impact such social media platforms have on adolescents’ learning in terms of shaping their knowledge, skills, and attitudes. It also investigates the impact of social media on adolescent schoolwork performance in the study area’s secondary schools.
1.8 Term Definitions in Operational Context
In the research study, the following terms are operationally defined:
1. Social Media: These are forms of electronic communication that allow for interactive interaction based on specific interests. Web and mobile technology are included in social media. It is a collection of web-based applications that enable the creation and exchange of user-generated content. The focus of this study is on popular adolescent social media platforms such as Facebook, Whatsapp, and 2go.
2. Learning Ability: The learning ability of any individual referred to in the study is an individual’s mental ability to cope with things around him. This is frequently associated with the level of potential inherited from one’s parents.
3. Learning: The activity or process of acquiring knowledge or skill through study, practice, instruction, or experience.
4. Attitude: This is an individual’s reaction or behavior to a specific action or stimulus, which can be positive or negative.
5. Writing Ability: This refers to a student’s ability to compose meaningful text of sentence length or longer for the purpose of communicating ideas, messages, and information through a human medium. Writing is a form of communication in which language and emotion are represented through the inscription or recording of signs and symbols.
6. Academic Performance: this refers to a student’s ability to perform well, fairly, or poorly in an examination.
7. Gender: This is determined by biology and, in the context of this study, refers to boys and girls. In general, it refers to the culturally and socially constructed gender gap.
8. Age: As used in the study, it refers to a period of human life measured in years from birth that is usually marked by a certain stage or degree of mental or physical development and involves legal responsibility and capacity.
Do You Have New or Fresh Topic? Send Us Your Topic
INSTRUCTIONS AFTER PAYMENT
- 1.Your Full name
- 2. Your Active Email Address
- 3. Your Phone Number
- 4. Amount Paid
- 5. Project Topic
- 6. Location you made payment from