The Use of Social Media and its Impact on Academic Performance of 3rd Year Bachelor

of Science in Marine Transportation (BSMT) Students of Isabela College of Arts and

Technology, Inc. (ICAT)

A Research Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Marine Transportation at Isabela

College of Arts and Technology, Inc. (ICAT)

Brgy. Tagaran, Cauayan, Isabela

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in

Marine Transportation

A Research presented to
CEFERINO A. LACASANDILI, JR. MAED
Research Adviser

Researchers:

BENJAY N. RAMISCAL
CHRISTIAN JADE E. ROSARIO
JAMES D. SABADA
GLENDA B. SEGUNDO
ALLEN SIMAN
JERRYL D. TUMALIUAN

SY 2020-2021
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

The advent of the internet in the 1990s led to major developments in the world of

communication hence the introduction of social networking sites (SNSs). The coming into

being of these sites revolutionized the world of communication and today we celebrate its

improvements ranging from education to entertainment. The evolution of the internet has led

to its usage as the best medium of communication whereby two-third (2/3) of the internet

world‘s population visit social networking sites (SNSs) thus serving as communication and

connection tools. These networking sites are referred to as social media (Boyd and Ellison,

2007).

Social media exploded as a category of online discourse which enables people to

create contents, share them, bookmark them and network at a prodigious rate (Jha and

Bhardwaj, 2012). This has breached the gap that existed in communication where people had

to rely solely on traditional methods such as letters and phone calls as a mode of getting in

touch with friends and relatives. Today, communication is as easy as walking into a

neighbor’s residence to deliver a piece of information or vice versa through the use of social

media. Social media is fast changing the public discourse in the society and is setting trends

and agenda in topics that ranges from the environment and politics to technology and the

entertainment industry (Asur and Huberman, 2010).

As we know, nothing interesting is ever completely one-sided, so it is for social media

as it comes with both positive and negative effects. There is a correlation between social

media usage and academic performance of students in universities. There have been various
views and opinions which recognize four major advantages of social media use in higher

education. These include; enhancing relationship, improving learning motivation, offering

personalized course material, and developing collaborative abilities (Wheeler, Yeomans and

Wheeler,2008; Rifkin, Longnecker, Leach and Ortia,2009). Also, Liccardi et al (2007),

argued that students are socially connected with one another and therefore share their daily

learning experiences and do conversation on various topics through social media whereas

Kuppuswamy and Shankar (2010), reviewed that social network websites grab students’

attention and then diverts it towards noneducational and inappropriate actions including

useless chatting.

Therefore, this study aims to determine the use of social media and its impact on

Academic Performances of 3rd year BSMT students of ICAT.

B. Statement of the Problem

The general objective of the study was to determine the use of social media and its

impact on Academic Performances of 3rd year BSMT students of ICAT. Specifically, it aims

to:

1. To determine the impact of social media networks to the academic performance of the

3rd year BSMT students.

2. To determine the commonly used social media network.

3. To ascertain the difference in students’ usage of social media network by gender.

C. Research Questions

1. Does the social media network influence their academic performance?

2. What social media networks are commonly used by students?

 3. Is there a gender difference in the students’ usage of social media network?

D. Conceptual Framework

The system approach (Input- Process- Output System) was used in describing the

Conceptual Framework of the Study. As shown in Figure 1, the Input consist of demographic

profile of the respondents and statement of the problem. The process is to conduct the survey

form through Google survey forms, Collection of Data, Analysis and Interpretation, and test

of significance and correlation. Lastly, the output is the response of the respondents and

Correlation of using social media and its impact in the 3rd year academic performance.
 E. Hypothesis

HA1: There is a significant difference between student’s exposure to social media and

their academic performance.

HO1: There is no significant difference between student’s exposure to social media

and their academic performance.

HA2: There is a significant difference between male and female student usage of

social media network

HO2: There is no significant difference between male and female student usage of

social media network

F. Significance of the Study

The study will help researchers with more information on the use of social median

and its impact on the academic performances of 3rd year BSMT students of ICAT. The

research will benefit not only the researchers who conducted this study but also the

following:

1. Teachers- This study will help the teachers at the school to know the influence that

social media has on their students, so as to assist them to enlighten and create

awareness to the students on the possible influence it has on them.

2. Parents- This study will help the parents so that they will know possible effects these

social media usages has on their children and be vigilant to their children on the usage

of the social media site.

 3. Students- This study will help the students so that they will be aware on the use of

social media and using sites more than necessary will pose possible dangers to their

health. It will be relevant in assisting students in understanding the diversity of social

media.

4. Future researchers- Other Researchers will also benefit on this research paper. If

they are aiming to conduct a research on the same study or aiming to improve, they

can use this research paper as a basis on their study.

G. Scope and Delimitation

The focus of this research work is to primarily study the use of Social Media and its

impact on Academic Performances of 3rd year BSMT students of ICAT. This study will be

conducted through online. The respondents of the study will be randomly selected 3 rd year

BSMT students of ICAT.

H. Operational Definition of Terms

As words may mean differently in different contexts, the following definitions are

given as the words used as intended to be understood for the purpose of this study.

 Social Media- They are forms of electronic communication which facilitate

interactive base on certain interests. Social media include web and mobile technology.

 Social Networking Sites- A website where people put information about them and can

send to others.

 Social Networking- The use of internet to make information about yourself available

to other people especially people you share an interest with to send messages to them.

 Media- Are all those media technologies that are intended to reach a large audience by

mass communication.
  Academic- It is concerned with studying from books as opposed by a practical work.

 Students- Someone who is studying at university or school.

 Computer- Is a machine that receives, stores and process data quickly according to a

stored program.

 ICT- Information and Communication Technology.

 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Literature Review In this study three main themes will be addressed through analysis and

research that will help in understanding the effect of social media usage among college

students on their academic performance followed by the theoretical framework. The three

main themes are: the concept of social media, influence of Social Media on Students’

Academic Performance and the gender usage of social media.

1) The Concept of Social Media

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) defined social media as “Internet based

applications that allow the creation and exchange of content which is user generated”

(p.61). They stated that social media was first known in1979, when Tom Truscott and

Jim Ellis from Duke University created the Usenet, a worldwide discussion system

that allowed Internet users to post public messages; and also when Bruce and Susan

Abelson founded “Open Diary” in 1998.Open Diary was an early social networking

site in which members of a certain community shared their daily diary online and the

word “blog” was first used at the same time. Before the second stage of development

of the Internet, “Web 2.0,” in the late 1990’s, users browsed only for the aim of

getting information through reading from various resources and watching videos

(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) users at this
time were considered consumers not participants. It was mentioned in Ritzer and

Jurgenson (2010) study (as cited in Obar & Wildman, 2015) afterwards, Web 2.0,

representing the second stage of the Internet development namely “User Generated

Content (UGC)”, Internet users were transformed from being consumers and

participants to “prosumers” which means that they consume and produce media (as

cited in Obar & Wildman, 2015). These new affordances are what made the

applications and dynamic interaction of social networking possible. Some of the

common features that qualify a tool to be considered a social networking site are:

enabling users to communicate with each other in an easy way and allowing users to

exchange information, pictures and messages (Dijck, 2011).

While social media networks collect a lot of personal data about the users,

they also afford the privacy of the users. For example, the visibility of the online

profiles depends on the social media network website privacy terms and conditions.

Boyd and Ellison (2007) mentioned that LinkedIn controls what the user can display

and see according to the user’s subscription and paid fees. On the contrary, Facebook

users’ profiles are available to all other users in the same network, unless a profile

owner decides to change the privacy options. Moreover, private messaging, comments

and friends features differ from one social media network website to another

depending on the feature and user base (Boyd & Ellison, 2007).

With all the features social media are providing, they have facilitated the lives

of millions of people. Although they are easily accessible and despite the tremendous

opportunities they offer, social media can have their drawbacks. Issues of privacy,

detachment from reality and being the target of advertisers are some of the main

concerns. However, they are creating a new communication landscape that is yet to be

discovered and used.

2) Influence of Social Media on Students’ Academic Performance

Using social media to enhance the learning process can take a number of

forms, target various skills, and utilize different tools. University educators propose

that social media can have a positive influence on interaction, engagement,

knowledge building, and sense of community (Rovai, 2001). However there is also

research that shows that these same tools can distract learners from their studies, and

encourage procrastination and superficial thinking. The following section will present

some of the studies that addressed the relationship between social media and

academic performance and learning. This review presents a snapshot mainly on

studies dealing with the most popular social networking tools such as Facebook,

rather than a comprehensive review of all forms of social media.

Studies generally imply that social media is mainly used by college students to

socialize rather than for academic pursuits. Raacke and Bonds-Raacke (2008) found

out that college students around the age of 20 with accounts on Myspace or Facebook

use these systems “to keep in touch with old friends” (96.0%), “to keep in touch with

my present friends (91.1%), “to post/look at pictures” (57.4%), “to make new friends”

(56.4%), and “to locate old friends” (54.5%). But only 10.9 percent stated that they

used it “for academic purposes”, and only 12.9 percent listed their courses on their

profiles. Similarly, Michikyan, Subrahmanyam, and Dennis (2015) used a mixed-

method approach to investigate the relationship between online academic disclosure

(namely status updates about their academic experiences) and academic performance

for 261 students with an average age of 22 years. Thematic analysis of their posts

indicated that 14% of their contributions to Facebook were academic in nature. On the
other hand, the majority of students in Camilia, Sajoh, and Dalhtu (2013) used social

media for academic purposes.

Several studies suggest that the time spent on social media takes away from

the time available for studying. Alwagait, Shahzad, and Alim (2015) investigated to

role of social media on academic performance of 108 Saudi students. Survey data

revealed that Twitter was the most popular social network followed by Facebook. The

average number of hours spent by students on social media was 25.3 hours. Sixty

percent of the respondents acknowledged that excessive use of social media

negatively impacted their performance, and indicated that 10 hours per week of use

would ensure that their academic performance is not negatively impacted.

SimilarlyKrischner and Karpinski (2010) noted that some students do not have control

on their social media while engaged in academic activities, and that they spend more

time on these networks than they do studying or sleeping. They point out that

empirical research suggests the negative impact of multitasking, or attempting to

simultaneously process different sources of information, on performance. They

underscore that this leads to increased study time and an increased number of

mistakes on assignments. Boogart (2016) conducted a study in four universities to

investigate the impact of Facebook on campus life at four higher education

institutions, analyzing the responses of 3134 students. He found significant

relationships between time spent on Facebook, and several demographic variables.

Females spent significantly more time on Facebook. Students with a GPA of 2.99 or

less reported being longer on Facebook than those with a higher GPA. Also, students

who are in their first and second years of undergraduate study spend more time using

Facebook than those in their third year – the majority of the third year students

(almost 70%) spent less than 30 minutes on day using it.

 Julia, Langa & Miquel (2015) underscored the importance of social and

relational factors in for educational attainment within higher education. They

examined the impact of the connectedness afforded by social media tools on the

performance of students within desperate disciplines of study – creative and non-

creative – at the bachelor’s level, 76 students participated from the business

administration and management discipline which is considered as non-creative and 78

students participated from the industrial design engineering discipline which is

considered as creative. The results of their study suggested that close social ties within

the network of their discipline helped students within the non-creative discipline

perform better. The same was not true for the creative discipline in which the

relationship between social ties and performance was inversely proportional.

Wodzicki, Schawmmlein and Moskluik (2012) pointed out the potential of

social media to develop students’ self-directed learning skills because they give

students a platform to explore subjects and gather information through accessing

existing data on the web or interacting with like-minded students to constructively

exchange ideas and build knowledge through informal and formal activities.

Wodzicki et al (2012) however note that little is known about how these informal

learning opportunities are harnessed and about the characteristics of the students who

engage in these activities. To examine these relationships, they conducted three

studies to investigate academic knowledge exchange via StudiVZ, an equivalent to

Facebook on 774 users of StudiVZ students. The sample consisted of 498 women and

276 men between 19 and 29 years, which is a typical age range for German students.

Analysis revealed that one fifth of students employed this social media tool to build

knowledge. However, the majority, especially freshman, used it 21 for social purposes

such as networking and getting oriented to the university environment. The

 researchers concluded that knowledge exchange and social functions for using social

networks should be regarded as intertwined rather than mutually exclusive.

3) Gender Usage of Social Media

Males and Females use social media at similar rates (Pew research center,

2017). However, according to Lim, Heinrichs and Lim, (2017) females perceive

social media differently than males. Social media corporations found out that interest

and curiosity are the main factors that affect the social media usage of females,

whereas variety of contents is the main factor that affects the social media usage of

males. There are also several researches mentioned that there are gender differences

in the social media usage. For example one of the conducted studies to analyze this

phenomenon showed that females listen to less music on social media sharing

platforms than males (Putzke, Fischbach, Schoder & Gloor, 2014). On the other hand,

in 2007 a research from Pew research center showed that 70 percent of female

teenagers use social media and that only 54 out of the 70 are active members and post

photos on different social media platforms, as compared with males with 54 people,

only 40 out of the 54 are active members (Ularo, 2014).

Another study by Zheng, Yuan, Chang & Wu (2016) showed that females use

to put seductive profile pictures more than males because they believe that the

attractiveness of the profile picture influences the number of online followers or

friends they have. This study also showed that females gave emphasis to emotional

expression while using social media. On the contrary, males enjoy showing that they

are having fun while using social media. A study by Chan, Cheung, Na Shi & Lee

(2015) showed that the majority of females use social media for socializing and
connecting with their family members, whereas males are more focused on task-

oriented actions and gaming.

It was also mentioned by (Correa, Hinsley &Zungia, 2010) that the personality

traits affecting the social media usage of males and females differ. For example,

males who are emotionally stable tend to use social media less than the males who are

not emotionally stable. However, emotional stability does not have any effect on the

social media usage of the females. It was also mentioned that females who are open to

experience tend to use social media more than the females who are introverts.

However, openness to experience and extraversion do not have any effect on the

social media usage of males.

Gender usage is also altered when it comes to the social media multitasking

phenomenon. Research showed that females tend to use multiple social media

platforms at the same time while doing other things. Studies showed that 50.5 percent

used to talk face to face with other people and 56.2 percent use to talk on the phone

while using social media (Ularo, 2014). Researches mentioned that females are better

at multitasking than males. For example, Offer and Schneider (2011) reported that

mothers spend 10 more hours a week multitasking compared with fathers” as cited in

(Mantyla, 2013, para.1)

Studies that focus on the role of gender with reference to academic activities

and performance are rare.

 CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

This part describes the method used by the researchers, the design of the study, which

includes research locale and the respondents. Sampling technique, data gathering instruments

and data gathering procedure was also considered for better understanding of how the

researchers will obtain and analyze the data.

A. Research Design

This study will use quantitative research. According to Gigi Devault, 2020, quantitative

research is the process of gathering observable data to answer a research question

using statistical, computational, or mathematical techniques. It is often seen as more accurate or

valuable than qualitative research, which focuses on gathering non-numerical data.

Correlational Quantitative Research design will be used because it measures the

relationship between two variables without the researcher controlling either of them. By using

Quantitative method, we will obtain reliable data for computing the gathered data.

B. Respondents of the Study

The respondents of the study are the 3 rd year BSMT students of ICAT. Selection of

respondents will be made possible using the convenient purposive sampling technique. Since

respondents are willing to participate in the research. This makes it further suitable for this

research than any other form of sampling and students will be picked at random. From which, a
 total sample size of 75 students were randomly selected using marginal error of 5 and

confidence level of 95% (0.05) from the total population of 90 3rd year BSMT students of

ICAT.

C. Research Environment

This study will be conducted through online from December 2020 to February 2021.

Using Google forms, a free online tool, that allows you to collect information easily and

efficiently, the randomly selected 3rd year BSMT students of ICAT will be answering the survey

forms.

D. Statistical Tool

This study uses Pearson r as its statistical tool. Pearson’s correlation coefficient is the test

statistics that measures the statistical relationship, or association, between two continuous

variables. It is a method of measuring the association between variables of interest because it is

based on the method of covariance. According to University Library, the bivariate Pearson

Correlation produces a sample correlation coefficient, which measures the strength and

direction of linear relationships between pairs of continuous variables. By extension, the

Pearson Correlation evaluates whether there is statistical evidence for a linear relationship

among the same pairs of variables in the population. The gathered data will be analyzed using

descriptive statistics. Microsoft Excel will be used in the statistical analysis of the data and the

results will be shown in tables with corresponding Frequencies and Percentage.

 E. Research Instrument

The quantitative instrument for this study is a survey. Ohaja (2003) defines a survey as

the study of the characteristics of a sample through questioning, which enables the researcher to

make generalizations concerning the population of his/her study. This design is considered

appropriate because it enables the researcher to establish the range and distribution of some

social characteristics, and to discover how these characteristics may be related to certain

behavior patterns or attitudes (Zurmuehlin, 1981). The questionnaire was divided into five

sections. Set A was for the collection of information on personal date of respondents while

section B-E consisted of questions that elicited responses from the respondents. Section B will be

answered by the respondents with yes or no while the rest of the sections will be rate by the

respondents (strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree).

The survey form that will be used was adopted from Gina Mowafy, 2018 and was

modified by the researchers and checked by expert to maintain the validity and reliability of the

survey form.

During the preparation of the instrument, the requirements for designing a good data

collection instrument were considered. For instance, statements describing the issues was toned

down to accommodate the knowledge of the respondents. In this way, the instrument was

authorized to obtain valid responses from our respondents.

 F. Method of Data Collection

For the quantitative data collection, the researcher has created the questionnaire in

Google Forms and used it to collect data. Data collection took place at researcher’s house. The

questionnaire link was sent to each student’s Gmail account whenever it is convenient for the

researcher to do so. After answering the online survey forms, the respondents will submit their

outputs online and the researcher will be notified every time someone submits their survey

forms. Before answering, the researcher would introduce the survey, and assure the students that

this survey is anonymous and the data gather will be treated with confidentiality.

G. Method of Data Analysis

Responses from the questionnaire were analyzed using the descriptive statistics of

frequency counts and percentage, and inferential statistics of Pearson r. Descriptive statistics of

frequency counts and percentages were used in analyzing demographic variables and research

questions while the inferential statistics of Pearson r was also used to test the stated hypotheses

at 0.05 level of significances.