Social media use by undergraduate students of education in Nigeria: a survey
| Published date | 05 February 2018 |
| Pages | 21-37 |
| Date | 05 February 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-01-2017-0023 |
| Author | Lalith Wickramanayake,Saidu Muhammad Jika |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Social media use by
undergraduate students of
education in Nigeria: a survey
Lalith Wickramanayake
Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka, Belihuloya, Sri Lanka, and
Saidu Muhammad Jika
Gombe State University, Gombe, Nigeria
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to investigate teacherstudents’perceptions, intentions, experiences, attitudes,
opinionsand barriers concerning social media use and impact of social media on theirlearning process.
Design/methodology/approach –A stratified samplingtechnique was applied to draw the sample, and
242 teacher students were selected as a sample from three higher educational institutions in Gombe State,
Nigeria. A questionnairesurvey method was used to collect the data. Data analysis was by means of simple
and inferentialstatistics.
Findings –The students widelyused mobile phones to access social media, and social media was extremely
popular for education, entertainment and communication among them. Educational and informational
communities were also preferredby students to other social media communities. The study further revealed
that effective social media usageamong students enhanced their different types of skills including learning.
Unstable electricity connections, security and privacy issues, internet costs and unreliable internet
connectionswere recorded as some barriers concerning students’socialmedia use.
Originality/value –The outcome of this study will be a unique contribution because the pertinent literature
provides little evidence or research highlights concerning teacher students’social media use. Even more, the
results of the present study may be a useful resource for university administrators, education policymakers and
innovative teachers in universities –especially in developing countries and particularly Nigeria –when
considering integration of modern techniques and technologies with university teaching and learning.
Keywords User studies, Social media, Nigeria, Internet-based learning, Media-based teaching,
Teaching students
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Social media is an interactive product in the virtual environment and developed from
Web 2.0 technology. It hasbecome an integral part of everyday life of average internetusers
(Baro et al.,2013;Voss and Kumar, 2013), regardless of what devices they use to access the
internet. Different definitions of social media are available in the literature, along with
classifications, although they usually have similar meanings (Khobzi and Teimourpour,
2014). According to a verypopular definition:
[...] social media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and
technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated
content (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).
The authors would like to acknowledge Dr Colin Hanbury (Research Assistant Professor of
University of Western Australia) for editing the text of this article.
Undergraduate
students of
education
21
Received26 January 2017
Revised14 March 2017
Accepted2 May 2017
TheElectronic Library
Vol.36 No. 1, 2018
pp. 21-37
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-01-2017-0023
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
Mostafa (2015) defines social media in the Web2.0 context as “[...] the usage of Web-based
tools that link peopleand enable them to share information, videos, pictures,and so on”.
The term social media is used synonymously with other terms, such as social networks,
social networking sites, social software, social software tools, social media tools, social
media technology, community websites, Web-based tools, Web 2.0 tools, Web 2.0
communicative technology, virtual worlds, virtual communities, online communities,
collaborativesoftware, e-communities and social network services.Some authors have taken
considerable effort to classify or define some of these terms. Swaminathan et al. (2013),for
example, divided social media into blogs, networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn and
Twitter) and community websites (Wikipedia and YouTube). According to Kaplan and
Haenlein (2010), social media included “[...] collaborative projects, blogs, content
communities, social networkingsites (SNS), virtual game worlds, and virtual socialworlds”.
Lim et al. (2014) grouped themfurther “[...]into seven categories: text-based, media sharing,
social networking, mobile-based applications, virtual world and games, synchronous
communications and conferencingapplications and mash-ups”.AsEke et al. (2014) asserted
that social media can now be included into different platforms such as social, political,
academic, business,sports, romantic and religious.
Despite the various definitions and classifications of social media, researchers have
outlined the functions and purposes of this powerful and increasingly developing
technology in the current literature. Swaminathan et al. (2013) opined that social media
simply “[...] enabled users to exchange messages, maintain personal profiles, and create
lists of ‘friends’”. It also facilitatedsharing information and collaboration among the users in
society at large and significantly in the context of education, business, marketing,
advertising, recreation,banking and recruitment (Khobzi and Teimourpour, 2014;Lim et al.,
2014). According to Singh and Gill (2015),a social media community with common issues or
interests will share news, hobbies, religion and culture. The advantages of this technology
are increasingly used by the health sector to widely disseminate health information (CDC,
2011).
The popularity and use of social media, especially among students and young
populations, has rapidly increased over the past few years (Hamade, 2013;Swaminathan
et al.,2013). It has now alsobecome an important resource in the lives of university students
and has affected every aspect of their lives, including learning. This might be because this
generation is reported as “millennials”,“net savvy”,“digital natives”or “net students”who
rely heavily on electronic devices rather than traditional methods of teaching and learning
(Hess and Shrum, 2011;Shittuet al.,2011). This group quickly adapts to the newest formsof
communication (Voss and Kumar, 2013), information sharing and recreation, as well as
learning through new media,such as blogging, text messaging, googling, social networking
and game playing. Especially among students in higher education, the application and
integration of this cutting-edge technology is increasingly developing; “[...] computer-
mediated social networkshave become part of the life of university students”(Dogoriti et al.,
2014) and “[...] Web 2.0 and the social software has become a tool in the hand of the present
generation of students”(Shittu et al.,2011). Whether the process of communication is
synchronous or asynchronous, social media creates collaboration and a shared learning
environment amongstudents:
The use of social media in university teaching adds a collaborative dimension to teaching and
enhances interaction and communication between all those involved in the teaching-learning
process, as well as enhancing the student experience by encouraging participation (Mostafa,
2015).
EL
36,1
22
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