THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AT THE KURUTIE CAMPUS, NIGERIA MARITIME UNIVERSITY, DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

Computer Science and Engineering, Information Technology

The study was on the impact of social media on the students’ academic performance at the Kurutie Campus, Nigeria Maritime University, Delta State. To achieve this aim, the survey research method was adopted for the study. The sample size of 300 students was selected randomly from students from Faculty of Engineering. Questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. 280 respondents (representing 93.3%) were retrieved and analysed. Subjects were drawn from the students using the simple random sampling technique and purposive sampling. Four research questions guided the study. Frequency and percentage were used to analyze the four research questions using the proportional sampling techniques, including the table of random numbers technique for the primary stratum, and therefore the accidental sampling technique for the second stratum. Research findings showed that a great number of students had access to the ICT which impacts to very high extent on the students’ academic performances. The research showed that students use internet fairly often, they are attentive to and use social networking sites, they spend above 3 hours on social networking activities, and also the use of social media has influenced their academic performances positively in numerous ways such as; Information retrieval skill, activities participation in terms of assignment with a classmate, and in their grades. They use social networking sites for entertainment, reading newspapers, academics, and searching for advertisements. The research concluded that lecturers and students should use social media for tutorial purposes, and students should be oriented on effective time management on the internet for socialising and academic purposes. Furthermore, the researcher concluded that sites should be created for educational purposes so as to create a balance between social networking and academic activities of students to avoid setbacks in their academic performances.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.