The Use of Social Media for the Development of Digital Literacy of Students: From Adequate Use to Cognition Tools

Abstract

The study focuses on the possibility of turning social media into an effective tool to improve digital literacy and facilitate cognition. In view of this, a one-month experiment involving 268 eighth graders from two Moscow schools was conducted; the participants were divided into a control and an experimental group. The students were encouraged to independently search and develop social network skills to solve educational issues and improve cognition. Objective performance tests were conducted based on the curriculum results. According to the academic performance, the mean grade on a 12-point scale in the experimental group increased from 7.77 to 8.76 points, while in the control group the change remained within the statistical error (7.64 and 7.76, respectively). A strong correlation between the grades obtained in different groups (0.8 when comparing the final results in two groups) was found. The study can be put into practice within the framework of the widespread introduction of social media in school curricula as a tool to access information, develop digital literacy and the ability to use digital cognition tools being supervised and supported by a skillful teacher.