Influence of Social Media on Students’ Academic Performance as Perceived by Undergraduate Education Students

Abstract

The use of social media among tertiary institution students has been the concern of scholars within the education realm in respect of the influence on academic performance. While some have found positive impact, others have recorded negative or neutral. However, specific attention has not been given education students who are the potential builders of up-coming generation on their views in relation to the influence on academic performance. This study therefore investigated the perceived influence of the use of social media on students’ academic performance. The study adopted a descriptive survey design by randomly selecting 297 undergraduate education students of Osun State University from 2^nd, 3^rd and final year students.  The instrument used for data collection is a self-developed questionnaire titled ‘Influence of Social Media on Academic Performance’. One research question and two hypotheses were generated for the study. Data were analysed using simple percentage and frequency count aspect of descriptive statistics, t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The results showed that the use of social media has both positive and negative influence on academic performance. The study also revealed no bias in the view of the respondents based on gender and number of years spent as students in the university. The researcher therefore recommends the need to educate students on the educational benefits of social media, guide the students on how to use social media to enhance learning coupled with the incorporation of social media as instructional strategy in the school curriculum.

Keywords: Academic performance, perception, social media, undergraduate students