Using Social Media In Higher Education: Enhancing Students’ Learning And Engagement

Abstract

Social Networking Websites such as Youtube, Twitter and Facebook are an important part of college students' lives. The purpose of this study is to examine how incorporating social media into teaching process can contribute to students' learning, engagement, and their academic performance. Primary Data is collected through an online pre-test and post-test survey administered to a sample of 90 Daulat Ram College students (45 in the experimental group and 45 in the control group). With the experimental group, social media is used for various types of academic and co-curricular discussions. Engagement was measured using a 24-item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement. The two group's differences in engagement and marks are analyzed using fixed effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) model (using statistical software SPSS). This study addresses the following Research Hypothesis H1: Encouraging the use of Social media for educationally relevant purposes has positive impact on marks of students (Academic Performance)? H2: Encouraging the use of social media for educationally relevant purposes has positive impact on students' engagement? This paper investigates the acceptability of social media for collaborative learning and the possibility of using it as an effective teaching tool.