Relationship between use of social media, student engagement and academic performance at higher education institutions
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Date
2018
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UMT.Lahore
Abstract
Social media is a popular communication tool for college students in many countries. Even though the literature indicates that the use of social media in a higher learning environment is likely to enhance academic performance of university students, the mechanism that explains such association is yet to be explored. Based on the claims that the integration of social media use is purposeful to enhance student engagement, this study aimed to investigate the role of social media use was an independent variable in this study. Student engagement and academic performance were dependent variable in this study.
A total number of 320 university students in three public and three private universities in Lahore were randomly chosen to participate in this study.A descriptive research design was used to examine the role social media in student’s engagement and academic performance. A survey research design was used to attain target of the study. Simple random sampling was used for data collection. Questionnaire was used as the main data collection technique, which was personally administered. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package Social Sciences (SPSS 21).
The result suggests that social media has the potential to be used in a learning environment as it promotes cognitive engagement of students out of the class and subsequently their academic performance and success. This study will help higher learning institutions and educators think of ways to integrate the use of social media in learning activities to help students achieve better academic performance. As shown by the findings, such use can encourage students to be cognitively engagement in class in which the students can be more active learners.
The present study adds to the literature in social media use by addressing the issue of how it helps enhance academic performance of college students in a single model. Past studies tended to examine the role of social media and student engagement and the effect of student engagement on academic performance separately. Furthermore, this study took into consideration various types of social media used by college students who tend to have multiple accounts.
Key words: Social media (SM), student’s engagement (SE), academic performance (AP), Higher education institutions