Chapter I

The Problem and its Background

INTRODUCTION

Social media severely impacts the academic performance of a student. The addiction to
social media is found more among the students of higher studies which ruins the academic
excellence of an individual (Nalwa & Anand, 2003). Among the social media users, Facebook
users’ academic performance was worse than the nonusers or users of any other social media
network. Facebook was found to be the major distraction among students (Kirschner &
Karpinski, 2010). However, other studies report contrary findings and argued that students
benefited from chatting (Jain et al., 2012), as it improves their vocabulary and writing skills
(Yunus & Salehi, 2012). Social media can be used either to excel in academics or to devastate
academics. It all depends on the way it is used by the students. The good or bad use of social
media in academics is the users’ decision because both the options are open to the students
(Landry, 2014).

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) defined social media as user-generated content shared on web 2.0.
They have also classified social media into six categories:

Social Networking Sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are the social networking
sites where a user may create their profile and invite their friends to join. Users may
communicate with each other by sharing common content.
Blogging Sites: Blogging sites are individual web pages where users may communicate and
share their knowledge with the audience.
Content Communities and Groups: YouTube and Slideshare are examples of content
communities where people may share media files such as pictures, audio and video and PPT
presentations.
Gaming Sites: Users may virtually participate and enjoy the virtual games.
Virtual Worlds: During COVID-19, this type of social media was used the most. In the virtual
world, users meet with each other at some decided virtual place and can do the pre-decided
things together. For example, the teacher may decide on a virtual place of meeting, and students
may connect there and continue their learning.
Collaborative Content Sites: Wikipedia is an example of a collaborative content site. It permits
many users to work on the same project. Users have all rights to edit and add the new content to
the published project.
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are in trend since 2020 due to the COVID-19
pandemic (Raja & Kallarakal, 2020). MOOCs courses are generally free, and anyone may enrol
for them online. Many renowned institutions have their online courses on MOOCs platform
which provides a flexible learning opportunity to the students. Students find them useful to
enhance their knowledge base and also in career development. Many standalone universities
have collaborated with the MOOCs platform and included these courses in their curriculum
(Chen, 2013).

Security and privacy are the two major concerns associated with social media. Teachers
are quite apprehensive in using social media for knowledge sharing due to the same concerns
(Fedock et al., 2019). It was found that around 72% teachers were reluctant to use social media
platforms due to integrity issues and around 63% teachers confirmed that security needs to be
tightened before using social media in the classroom (Surface et al., 2014). Proper training on
security and privacy, to use social media platforms in academics, is needed for students and
teachers (Bhatnagar & Pry, 2020).

The personality traits of a student also play a significant role in deciding the impact of
social media on students’ academic performance. Personality is a dynamic organization which
simplifies the way a person behaves in a situation (Phares, 1991). Human behaviour has further
been described by many renowned researchers. According to Lubinski (2000), human behaviour
may be divided into five factors, i.e. cognitive abilities, personality, social attitudes,
psychological interests and psychopathology. These personality traits are very important
characteristics of a human being and play a substantial role in work commitment (Macey &
Schneider, 2008). Goldberg (1993) elaborated on five dimensions of personality which are
commonly known as the Big Five personality traits. The traits are “openness vs. cautious”;
“extraversion vs. introversion”; “agreeableness vs. rational”; “conscientiousness vs. careless”;
and “neuroticism vs. resilient”.

It has been found that among all personality traits, the “extraversion vs. introversion”
personality trait has a greater impact on students’ academic performance (Costa & McCrae,
1999). Extrovert students are outgoing, talkative and assertive (Chamorro et al., 2003). They are
positive thinkers and comfortable working in a crowd. Introvert students are reserved and quiet.
They prefer to be isolated and work in silos (Bidjerano & Dai, 2007). So, in the present study, we
have considered only the “extraversion vs. introversion” personality trait. This study is going to
analyse the impact of social media platforms on students’ academic performance by taking the
personality trait of extraversion and introversion as moderating variables along with their
education level and gender.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Figure 1 below is the schematic diagram of the variables of the study

FIG. 1
Figure 1 show the schematic diagram of the Independent Variable which is the used if Social
Media and the Students’ Academic Performance.

Statement of The Problem

This paper aims to find out the positive and negative impact of social media on students’
academic performance. Specifically, it sought to answer the following.

1. What is social media and why students use it?

2.How much time do students spend using social media?
3.What is the impact of social media on students’ academic performance?

Scope and Delimitation

The focus of this research work is to primarily study the Influence of social media on the
academic performance of students. The study limited only on variables of social media that the
researchers assumed that has effects of respondent's academic performance. These variables are
respondent's access to internet, usage, perception on social media, and their frequency of using it.

Significance of the study

 This study is significant to the teachers, parents and students. This study will help the
teachers of the school to know the influence that social media has on their students, so as to
assist them to enlighten and create awareness to the students on the possible influence it has on
them. The study is of significant to parents in the sense that they will know the possible effects
these social media usage has on their children, so as to serve as watch-dog to their children on
the usage of the social networking site. The study will enable the students of the senior level so
that they will be aware that, apart from the social benefits of this social networking site, using the
sites more than necessary will pose possible dangers to their health. It will be relevant in
assisting students in understanding the diversity of social media. It will provide relevance
material for students and other researchers undertaking similar research. The study will help
researchers with more information on the Influence of social media on student’s academic
performance.

Definitions of Terms
As words may mean differently in different contexts, the following definitions are given
as the words used as intended to be understood for the purpose of this study.

Social Media:
They are forms of electronic communication which facilitate interactive base on certain interests.
Social media include web and mobile technology

Social Networking Sites:

A website where people put information about them and can send to others.

Social Networking:
The use of internet to make information about yourself
available to other people especially people you share an
interest with to send messages to them.

Media:
Are all those media technologies that are intended to reach a large audience by mass
communication. “They are messages communicated through a mass medium to a number of
people.

Academic:
It is concerned with Studying from books as opposed by a practical work.

Students:
Someone who is Studying at a University or School. Someone who is very interested in a
particular subject.

Computer:
A computer is a machine that receives or stores or process data quickly according to a stored
program.

Tweets:
A short message posted on Twitter (a micro blog).

ICT:
Information and Communication Technology.
 Chapter II
Review of Related Literature and Studies

This research effort is targeted at finding the effects of social media on students’
performance. Therefore, the literature review discusses the relevant research that is useful to the
objectives of this research project. Several research studies investigating the topic under review
are found to be very recent. Since most of the innovative features offered by social media
platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many others are not that old and the
phenomenon of the use of these media has boosted recently with the introduction of
revolutionary features and platforms, a volume of recent research on its effects on students’
academic performance is available. Most of the studies chosen have been published in the past
four to five years.

Tess (2013) presents a very comprehensive literature review paper regarding the role of
social media in higher education virtual and real classes. The review has consulted almost every
popular research database around the world to make this review rich in terms of covering almost
every aspect of explaining the role of different social media in higher education classes.

This research finds Facebook to be the most popular social networking site among
students as reported by some researchers and it has reached a one billion user base in October
2012. Myspace is another SNS which started in 2003 and got popular among people around
2009. However, it is not that popular among educational setups. Linkedln with more than
35,000,000 users has been reported as the third most popular SNS but mostly used for
professional networking. In addition, this research found Blogs, Social Impact, and twitter
among the other popular social networking sites.

The review found a mix of opinion regarding whether social networking platforms and
technology should be integrated into learning processes or not. Tess (2013) literature survey
finds many reasons for this mix of opinion. Although most of the educational institutions have
established infrastructure for the support of social media integration into class room learning,
however, the effective integration methodology is still a question mark for the researchers to
answer. Some practitioners are not willing to adopt this technology due to lack of proper training
in this area.

His review argues that researchers who support the integration of social media into
educational setup are of the view that conversational processes ensuring maximum interaction
and maximum mix of reflections are possible only through social networking platforms.
 Rouis, Limayem, & Salehi-Sangari (2011) investigate the effects of using Facebook on
academic performance of undergraduate students at Lulea University of Technology Sweden in
relation to their personality traits. The proposed research model tests how Facebook usage effects
performance of students with different personality traits. In addition, the research tries to justify
the relationship among the three i.e. Facebook usage, personality traits and academic
performance. Their analysis of 239 students’ data reveals very significant results. This research
establishes that using Facebook has strong negative impact on academic performance of students
with extrovert personalities. However, factor of self-regulation among students greatly reduces
this negative impact as they have high level of effective self-control while using social media
platforms. Cognitive absorption, which defines extent of deep involvement, is another
personality factor taken into consideration while undertaking this research.

Rouis, Limayem & Salehi-Sangari (2011) successfully make the observation that extent
of cognitive absorption determines the frequency and duration of social media usage. However,
they add that level of cognitive absorption is in turn defined by self-control and other personality
factors. While multitasking skills do nothing to reduce frequency and use of social media among
students, they moderate the effects of social media on students’ performance by tuning the
cognitive absorption.

Junco, R. (2012) investigates the impact of Facebook being a social medium on students’
performance on academic courses. The research analyzes data from 1839 respondents studying 4
years’ degrees in residential institutes of northeastern USA to find trends on frequency of
Facebook visits and activities, time spent on Facebook, time spent on class preparation and
academic grades of the students under research. Analysis of the collected data reveals that time
spent on Facebook and frequency of visiting Facebook are negatively related to students’
performance in terms of their GPA. However, there is slightly negative correlation between time
spent on this widely used social medium and the time spend in studying for class. He further
adds that although time spent on social media and academic performance are negatively
correlated but, this relationship in real world scenarios does not seem to be a major hurdle in
academic success.

One of the very significant findings of the study is about the use of social networking
sites for the purpose of learning. Majority of the respondents agree that they use SNSs as
informal learning tool and that it helps them connect to their friends and peers to get help
regarding their studies. However, in case of interaction with teachers, an equal split of opposite
opinions exists.

This study also supports the most common finding of majority of well-structured studies
that use of social networking sites has no significantly negative impact on the students’ academic
performance. They further state that the possibility of some other factors like social media
addiction, more time on internet, chatting, cognitive absorption etc. linked with the use of
internet or specifically social networking sites may cause poor academic performance.

Yang & Tang (2003) conducted a research study on forty (40) graduate students studying
a course in Advance Management Information Systems (AMIS) in a university in Taiwan to
investigate the impact of using social media for educational purpose on the academic
performance of the students. Students were grouped into 14 teams to discuss various questions
based on MIS cases in an online forum specifically set up for the purpose. The students had to
come up with summaries of the discussions made on the forum. At the end of the course, data
was collected from the forty students on a self-administered questionnaire for the purpose of this
particular research. The objective of the study was to find correlations among friendship, advice
and adversarial factors and student academic performance.

The results of the analysis show a strong correlation between centrality in friendship
factor and students’ academic performance. Friendship is psychologically associated with
companionship which gives individuals a better chance of accessing support and information on
problems. It can be inferred that promoting friendship among students in a controlled social
media environment, can help improve students’ academic performance.

Negussie & Ketema (2014) conducted a cross-sectional survey to at Jimma University

Ethiopia between March 2012 and March 2013 to find if any adverse effects of using social
networking sites on students’ academic performance exist. Like many other studies, this research
effort also took Facebook into consideration to establish its findings. In a cross-sectional study of
490 respondents, the research did not find any significant relationship between students’ duration
and frequency of use of Facebook and their academic performance.

Negussie & Ketema (2014) further investigated if there is any impact of using Facebook
while accessing through different devices. Among a variety of devices, it was found that the
correlation between using Facebook on mobile devices and student’s grades is highly negative as
compared to using Facebook on other devices. This adverse effect is explained by the fact that
using cell phones for social networking activities may involve multitasking and all students are
not equally efficient in multitasking skills. The study suggests, that students must be encouraged
to use social networking sites for educational purposes instead of blocking these platforms in the
educational premises.

Gupta (2013) research is specific to impact of social media on the performance of

students in distance education. This research is more significant due to the fact that distance
learning is totally dependent on social networking technologies. This study is concerned with the
respondents’ psychology towards using technology for the educational purposes and
identification of suitable tools and technologies to achieve academic goals and objectives. This
research analyses responses of 572 students enrolled to study a postgraduate course in
management. The course delivery and management is online and utilizes information and
communication technologies for this purpose.

This research infers that students’ use of Facebook as social medium for academic
purposes has no significant relationship with the academic performance of the students. This
research further establishes that new online tools and technologies must be integrated to promote
online interaction and form online social networks purposed towards educational achievements
and support. Teachers’ perceptions about students’ use of Facebook book were not supportive in
terms of adding any value to their academic performance as inferred by Gupta (2013).

The above literature review reveals that research on the role of social media and social
networking sites in academic performance of students is still debatable. Most of the researchers
have created more questions that finding answers.
 Chapter III
Methodology

This chapter presents the research design, respondents of the research, the research
instrument, reliability and validity of instrument, data gathering procedures, ethical consideration
s and statistical treatment that will be used in this study.

3.1 Research Design

The Descriptive research design will be used for this study. Descriptive research design is
a type of research design that aims to systematically obtain information to describe a
phenomenon, situation, or population. More specifically, it helps answer the what, when, where,
and how questions regarding the research problem rather than the why.

3.2 Respondents of the Research

In this descriptive study, the researchers will used simple random sampling. The
respondents will be drawn randomly. The sample size will be 50 students of Ubay National High
School. The researchers will randomly select the respondents of this study where there is an
equal chance to be in the sample population.

3.3 Research Instruments

The main instrument that will be used is survey questionnaire. This seeks to obtain data on
evaluating how social media affects the academic performance of the students.

3.4 Reliability and Validity of Instrument

The questionnaire is self-made by the researchers. This will be checked by the subject teacher
and/or panelists to make sure that the questionnaire is valid and reliable.

3.5 Data Gathering Procedures

A survey questionnaire will be administered to selected sample from the population. The
researchers will give questionnaire to the selected students.

3.6 Statistical Treatment

The frequency of each response will be determined on the number of respondents who will check
in the particular item. To determine the percentage of each frequency, the researcher will used
the formula of percentage.

P= (F•100)/N

Where,
P= percentage
F= frequency
N= total number of respondents

3.7 Ethical consideration

The names, grade levels, and sections will be confidential. The researcher will be honest in
determining the results of the study.
 Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
Region IX Zamboanga Peninsula

SCHOOL DIVISION OF ZAMBOANGA DEL NORTE

UBAY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Ubay, Labason Zamboanga Del Norte

Questionnaires on “The use of Social Media and its effect on the Academic Performance of
Ubay National High School”
ITEMS SA A D SD STUDENTS ADDICTIVENESS TO SA A D SD
SOCIAL NETWORK AND ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE
1 Addiction to online social networks is a problematic issue
that affects my academic life.
2 Online social networks distract me from my studies.
3 Hours spent online can never be compared to the number of
hours I spend reading.
4 There is no improvement in my grades since I became
engaged into these social networking sites
EXPOSURE OF STUDENTS TO SOCIAL MEDIA
NETWORK AND THEIR ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
5 I usually have unlimited access to Facebook and this has
affected my academic performance negatively.
6 I engage in academic discussions on twitter and this has
improved my academic performance.
7 I make use of whatsapp to disseminate knowledge to my
class mate.
8 I Solely rely on information gotten from Wikipedia to do
my assignments without consulting other sources.
USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND STUDENTS’
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
9 The usage of Wikipedia for research has helped improve my
grades.
10 Engaging in academic forums on yahoo reduces my rate of
understanding.
11 I use materials gotten from blogging sites to complement
what I have been taught in class.
12 I will not perform well in my academics even if I stop using
social media.
GENDER USAGE OF SOCIAL MEDI
13 Male and female students use social media networks
differently in different frequencies.
14 Female students use social networking sites more to
explicitly foster social connections.
15 Gender determines the level of social media network usage.
16 Males are more effective at using social networking sites for
nonacademic purposes.
AGE USAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
17 Age has impact on the use of social media. 18 Social media
become boring has I grow older.
19 Social media is not relevant to people of older generation.
20 The younger generation are the most active users of social
media.

Thank you for taking you time in answering the questions sincerely and honesty.
-The Researcher