INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF BIOLOGY STUDENTS IN NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA

Abstract

The study focused on the influence of social networking sites on the academic performance of biology student in National Open University of Nigeria.  Four research questions guided the study. The sample size was 187. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire which was validated by three experts. Split half method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument and a reliability index of 0.76 was obtained. Mean was used to answer the research questions.  The findings revealed among others that social media (facebook, twitter and linkedln), media sharing networks (instagram, snapchat, youtube), discussion forums (reddit, quora, digg), bookmarking and content curation networks (pinterest, flipboard)influence the academic performance of biology students in National Open Universiy of Nigeria. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended among others that   lecturers should embrace and effectively use social media to teach, give assignments to students, and create reading groups and other learning activities.