Impact of social media on student’s performance

Rodriquez Mitchell

Northcentral University

Introduction

In my selection of an article which fits the assignment criteria I zeroed down to a peer-reviewed article entitled “Impact of social media on student’s performance”. The article was authored in 2013 by Sara Selvaraj of Vels University. This work posits to explain the issue being addressed in the research article, the purpose of the work, provide a summary of the research questions therein, describe both the null and alternative hypothesis used by the author, show application of the conceptual framework, and discuss the methodology used and the limitation of the article.

Describe the problem or issue addressed.

The main issue addressed in the article is the consequences of students using social networking platforms. This means the impact that social networking has on the education system. As evident from the literature part of the work social networking sites are not meant to have a negative effect on the education system. However, it has turned out that there is an array of negative effects of using social networking sites by students. One of these problems is prompted by social networking site addiction. Students with access to the internet and have social media networking sites accounts spend a significant time of their day on these sites. The impact of that is the students are left with little or no time for their personal studies hence cannot submit things like assignments in a timely fashion (Selvaraj, 2013). Secondly, the students are poised to fail their examinations or experience a decline in their academic scores. The article attempts to show the severity of this problem and provide proof that indeed the problems exist.

Describe the purpose or intent of the study.

The article has 3 main objectives or intents. The first objective is to determine the influence of various social networking sites on student’s academic performance. Young children or generation is one of the most affected by social networking sites. The study tries to investigate the difference between the performance of the students before starting to use the sites and the performance after starting to use the sites. The second objective of the study is to investigate how the education system in totality has been impacted by social networking sites. This objective arises from the knowledge that not only student use the sites. The websites are used nearly by everyone in the sector irrespective of age, position and professional. This use must have an effect and it’s this impact that the work tries to unravel. The third objective of the study is to determine the motivation behind the use of social networking sites. These are the uses which are prompting individuals to sign up of social media accounts. The work also tries to discover the uses of the sites which leads to addiction. It’s also through this objective that it becomes easy to tell how social media networking sites have impacted the education system.

Summarize the research question(s).

The work has three research questions from which both the null and alternative hypothesis are drawn from.

1. How do social networking sites impact student’s academic performance?
2. What is the impact of social networking sites on the education system?
3. What are the purposes behind or the uses of social networking sites?

For a quantitative study, describe both the null and alternative hypotheses.

Addressing the first question about academic performance the author sort to investigate the issue using social media frequency. This entails how regular students use social networking sites. The frequency was then attached to the performance to see whether there is any correlation between the two.

On that note the null hypothesis of the research was (HO) there is no significant influence of social networking sites usage frequency on the academic performance of students.

To allow for investigation and show whether the null hypothesis should be rejected or accepted the Alternative hypothesis was:

(HA) There is a significant influence of social networking sites usage on the academic performance of students.

The data collected was tabulated at a 5% significance level to uphold or reject the null hypothesis. The Pearson value was 0.00 which is a value less than 0.05.

This results clearly show that the null hypothesis should be rejected. The rejection indicates that the alternative hypothesis hold and hence it right to conclude on this hypothesis that indeed there is a significant influence of social networking sites usage on the academic performance of students.

In addressing the second main question about the impact of social networking sites on the education system the researcher sought to investigate the relationship between student learning from social networking and the student’s studies as well as their performance.

The null hypothesis was (HO) there is no significant relationship between student learning from social networking and the student’s studies as well as their performance.

The alternative hypothesis was (HA) there is a significant relationship between student learning from social networking and the student’s studies as well as their performance.

Using 5% as the significance level the researcher obtained the Pearson value (P) =0.0562.

These results indicate that the null hypothesis holds and should be accepted.

On that note, it’s sound to conclude that there is no significant relationship between student learning from social networking and the student’s studies as well as their performance

The third hypothesis dealt with the third question.

(HO) There is no significant influence on viewing social networking websites on mobile phones as well as lifestyle impacts.

(HA) there is a significant influence on viewing social networking websites on mobile phones as well as lifestyle impacts

The Pearson value (P) for this hypothesis at a 5% confidence level was 0.001. This indicates the null hypothesis (HO) should be rejected and the alternative hypothesis should be accepted.

Discuss the theoretical/conceptual framework and how it was used, as well as how well it was used, to formulate and guide the study.

The dependent variable on the conceptual framework is the use of social networking sites. The dependent variables are the social lifestyle, marks, social influence and time spending on academic activities. The intervening variable is academic performance.

The framework was used to formulate and guide the study in the sense that it’s from the framework that the objectives of the paper are drawn from. Looking at the framework it’s easy to know what will be the research questions as well as both null and alternative hypothesis.

Determine if (and how well) the study was justified with the use of analysis and synthesis of the previous research literature.

The study is justified to use the literature therein. This is because one of the aspects of the literature used were works recently authored or in other words, they are not old references. With such references, it indicates they are authentic on the basis that they have captured the trends in social networking sites use and the impacts. Secondly, the sources used are peer-reviewed articles and books. This sources can be trusted to provide credible information hence the justification that the study was right to use the sources.

Discuss the selected methodology and corresponding design as well as the appropriateness of this choice to accurately address the study’s research question(s).

The study mainly used primary data. The data was collected using questionnaires. Respondents were issued with questions to answer. The study used a sample size of 100 respondents. The sampling technique employed was judgement sampling. After the collection of the data, the SPSS software was used to analyze it.

The use of primary data to address the questions at hand is appropriate. This stems from the fact that using primary data the researcher is able to collect true information or one which has not been manipulated (Glass, 2015). Secondly, social networking is a new issue which has not been given attention by many authors and researchers hence making it difficult to find secondary data.

Identify and summarize the potential flaws and/or limitations in the study as well as ways to eliminate or reduce them.

One of the main limitations of the study is the sample size. The sample size of 100 is too small to make possible to generalize the result. The researcher carried out the study in India. This is one of the most populated countries in the world with over 1 billion people indicating that the education sector is big with a big number of students. Using a sample size of 100 fails to reflect the true picture. To address this flaw it important to consider the population size before coming up with the sample size (Naing, Winn & Rusli, 2016). There are also various formulas used to calculate the sample size. A researcher can make good use of such formulas to prevent the flaw.

 
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