THE IMPACT OF THE USE OF WHATSAPP AS AN

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL IN THE TEACHING

AND LEARNING PROCESS OF POST COVID 19
 CHAPTER 1

1.1 Background of the Study

INTRODUCTION

It is evident that the Covid-19 epidemic has altered all sectors of human existence, beginning with
economics, social sciences, politics, and even education. Internet technologies are evolving, and their use
is altering means of communication and content exchange among users. Social networking apps are
incredibly popular amongst younger users and are widely used throughout the world since they allow easy
sociability. Because of their emphasis on modification, these technologies are altering the traditional
model of user contact, making them relatable to everyone. Every day, the number of people who use such
social networking forums grows. These forums primarily give interaction possibilities for individuals and
groups to grasp other worldviews and discuss changing and diverging thinking processes. The breadth of
such networking apps and software has expanded beyond socializing to include schooling. During the
Covid-19 pandemic, the world's education system moved from conventional to online. State schools were
totally shuttered due to lockdowns, and only a few private, resourceful institutions were able to provide
instruction online. To exist and continue the education process, all other private schools had to apply
innovation in the teaching-learning process. There are simple and frequent techniques for online
classrooms with free material sharing, such as Zoom, WhatsApp, Google Meet, and others. All of these
have unique characteristics for engaging students, sharing content, recording video, reducing labor for
taking notes, increasing social interaction, reducing formal time constraints, and listening to audios and
watching videos as many times as necessary for better understanding and learning. This emphasizes the
need of investigating the influence of such applications on the teaching-learning process and its
consequences. The project seeks to investigate the function of WhatsApp in the teaching-learning process
of online students, as well as the perspectives of other stakeholders participating in the teaching-learning
process, such as school principals, instructors, and parents. We thought the perspectives of teachers,
parents, and school principals were important in establishing the efficacy of WhatsApp's involvement in
education since they can give a more complete picture than their experience with face-to-face education
exchanges. The study's findings may bring substantial knowledge to the literature and can be investigated
further in terms of its influence on student learning and accomplishment in compared to traditional ways
of teaching.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Following the emergence of the global epidemic known as Covid-19, universities in Nigeria and other
countries felt driven to shift from traditional face-to-face classes to alternate remote education
approaches. Given that WhatsApp was already a popular means of communication among
undergraduate students. The study also looked into the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing it as
an E-learning platform, as well as how it may be enhanced for use by the larger education community.

1.3 AIM OF THE STUDY

The study's goal is to investigate the function of WhatsApp in the teaching-learning process of online
students and to solicit feedback from other stakeholders participating in the teaching-learning process.

1.4 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The current study focuses on the function of WhatsApp in the teaching and learning process in Nigerian
schools. The following goals motivated this study:

1. Determine the amount of familiarity of students with the WhatsApp-based teaching-learning process.

2. To assess the efficiency of the WhatsApp social networking platform as a medium of teaching among
Nigerian university students.

3. To investigate the opinions of education stakeholders on how students engage in online classes using
WhatsApp and the ease of learning utilizing it.

4. To assess students' enthusiasm in continuing to utilize WhatsApp social networking sites at a Nigerian
institution.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study was to discover the characteristics that contribute to effective WhatsApp-based
teaching and their impact on student accomplishment.