SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE AMONG UNDERGRADUATES IN UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN

ABSTRACT

The use of social media by undergraduates cannot be overemphasized. Social media sites are online networking applications that is used for interactions by one, two or more people in a place or an organisation. The purpose of this study is to determine the usage of social media sites by undergraduate students in University of Ilorin and it is also to determine the extent to which social media influences the learning process of undergraduates’ students in University of Ilorin, it will also show the extent to which social media influences their communication skills and How they get relevant information from the social media. The study employed the use of structured questionnaire containing 18 items to elicit the responses of the sampled population of 150 undergraduate students in University of Ilorin, Nigeria. The data gathered from the questionnaire was subject to statistical analysis using frequency and mean for the data analysis.The findings from the analysis showed that the research questions were satisfactorily answered. The conclusions drawn from the study is that Social media has very positive influence on undergraduate learning process, Social media has very positive influence on undergraduate information acquisition, Social media has very positive influence on undergraduate communication skills.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

 Background to the study

For many years, educators and researchers have explored which variables influence students’ achievement. In Nigeria, as policymakers are becoming more involved in learning outcome, this quest becomes more intensive as continuing attempts are on course on the influence of several teacher-related factors on students’ academic performance. Ajayi (2007) notes that characteristics of teachers in term of their attitude to work, level of job satisfaction and quality teaching skills and academic qualifications acquired are germane to students’ achievement.  Patrick (2005) reiterates that the important role of teachers in students learning is unquestionable. Teachers have a lot of influence on their classroom practices hence; they should possess as well as apply specific abilities without which their influence may not reflect in their students’ performance, particularly in the subjects taught by them. For students to make connection between what is taught in school in real life, must be professional, having sufficient teaching skills.

Better performance in teaching exercises, is a function of acquired skills in teaching. Hence, students are expected to acquire teaching skills before they graduate. It is inevitable that they will experience difficulties in their future teaching endeavors. Today’s students and educators live in the world of Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube. These and many other social networking and social media applications are part of the so-called Social Web (i.e., Web 2.0), best characterized by the notions of social interaction, content sharing, and collective intelligence. In addition, today’s students, often referred to as digital natives (Prensky, 2001), have spent most of their time on computers, game consoles, digital music players, video cameras, cell phones, as well as the Web itself. Being used to constant engagement and multitasking in their day-to-day activities, students need a high level of social and creative engagement in learning. Traditional teaching approaches favoring passive content consumption, therefore, are no longer applicable and have to be substituted, or at least complemented, with highly interactive learning processes.

Adediwura and Bada (2007) further opine that teachers should be aware of the importance of communication in Education. They must also realize that all students have different level of strengths and weakness. It is only through communication that an individual can introduce creative and effective solutions to the problems of the students. Thus, a teacher must possess so that they interact properly with the students-positive motivation; this is one of the important things that a teacher must possess. In a class, students always have different kinds of tastes and preferences over subjects. So it is the job of the teacher to create enthusiasm and interest in the minds of the students towards a subject. It is also a teacher’s role to remove any fear and inhibitions that a student may have towards a subject. Another communication skill is effective body language. This is the most powerful communication skill that a teacher must possess. Good presentation skills include a powerful body language supported by verbal skills. This can create a long lasting impression in the minds of the students. Thus, a teacher will inevitably become more interactive and interesting for the students. Besides, a teacher should maintain the volume, tone and rhythm for their voice during a lecture. Still on teaching skills, the focus for each lesson is an integral part of the learning objective teachers decide on. Therefore, the focus skill should be directly related to the structure or vocabulary that teachers are teaching and the context that is being used in. for example, if teachers want to teach polite language for business situations, a person might use polite language when meeting a client, which would be a spoken interaction, or perhaps when sending an email, which would be a written correspondence. Furthermore, it is particularly important to focus on the speaking or writing skills, even though listening and reading respectively would be used in those scenarios, because if a person hears or reads polite language without learning them, they are likely to still be able to understand the message being sent. However, if one tries to send a message in a business context and does not know how to use polite language, then they might potentially commit a faux pas or even cause offence, of course, practicing speaking and writing with polite language will naturally lead to better recognition of the same when reading and also listening (Adediwura & Bada, 2007).

Among the skills required for successful teaching and learning is feedback skill. It helps learners to maximize their potential at different stages of training, raise their awareness of strengths and areas for improvement, and identify actions to be taken to improve performance. Feedback can be seen as informal (for example in day-to-day encounters between teachers and students or trainees, between peers or between colleagues) or formal (for example as part of written or clinical assessment). However, there is no sharp dividing line between assessment and training in the area of giving feedback on learning. Feedback is part of overall dialogue or interaction between teacher and learner, not a one-way communication. Questioning skills are essential to good teaching. Teachers often use questions to ensure that the students are attentive and engaged, and to assess students understanding. What is more important to note is that in addition to the intent of the question, the question itself matters. For instance, to ensure that students are attentive (Tartari, 2015). Tartari (2015) believes that closure is the skill in micro-teaching exercise. Closure is the skill that is concerned with bringing the lesson to an end, and the teacher summarizes the major points of the lesson. Closure skill can take various forms or shapes such as; closure by questioning on the major points of the lesson and closure by giving pupils exercises. Tartari (2015) therefore concludes that the last teaching skills that undergraduates’ student position on the level of understanding the lesson that has been taught. Thus, teaching skills have been reported in the literatures to be affected by many factors, in which social media networking is part.

As the world has become a global village because of the technological advancement in the world and Nigeria in particular (Alabi, 2008; Kayode & Ojo, 2011); mobile teaching and learning (M-Learning) in recent years has become a valuable and real contribution to learning environment rather than what it used to be in previous years as a theory, academic exploration and technological idea. (Alzaza & Yaakub, 2011).

Farzana, Mushahid and Mahe (2010) and Oluwatoyin (2011) have shown that students have turned to the use of social media as their primary means of communication, so much that when they use e-Library, they soon forget their purpose of going online and start updating their status on social networking sites. Farzana, Mushahid and Mahe (2010) sought information from 95 Universities students on purpose of using social media. It was found that most of them frequently use these social media for making friends but rarely used them for academic purposes. The use of social media applications such as- WhatsApp, Facebook, 2go, Myspace, Eskimi and others is generating a lot of controversies in public domain particularly in respect of the usefulness and dysfunctional effects. Akindehin and Akindehin (2011) comment on Social networking can sometimes result in negative outcomes, some with long-term consequences, Bryer and Zavattaro (2011) note that over 65% of American adults use social media for networking likewise youths (including tertiary institutions students) all over the world get indulged with social media as useful as easy way of communicating with their loved ones and colleagues. Sim and Pop (2014) asserts that social networks or networking are the main application under the umbrella of social media, which comes with Web 2.0 era. It is the fastest growing web application in the 21^st century. The wide nature applications like Wikis, video streaming and applications, and social media makes with over 955 million users, followed by Twitter with 500 million users (Sim &Pop, 2014). Social networking is an important factor that opened doors for remote access of educational material. Such phenomenon is called e-learning, where information communication technology (ICT) is used as a facilitator of communication, assignment management, and task collaboration in universities (Harb & Abu-Shanab 2009). Social media is a fairly new concept since almost nobody heard or used social media 10-15 years ago.  Nevertheless, nowadays websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have more than 1 billion users and account for almost 25% of internet users.