Abstract:
Global connectivity becomes fast and advanced with the introduction of social media
networks such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Viber, and Imo. This study investigated the
social media network participation and the academic performance among university students
at the University of Colombo. The data collection methods used were a structured
questionnaire and participatory semi-structured online interviews. Through the structured
questionnaire, the basic information was gathered, and the participatory online interview was
used to collect in-depth data about the time spent on education and social media. The study
population was all the undergraduates (600) in the Faculty of Arts, who are following ICT as
a subject. A sample of 234 undergraduates was randomly selected on the recommendations
on sample size by Krejcie and Morgan (1970). There were no gender differences in this
regard. The highly used social media is WhatsApp (92%) followed by Facebook (78%), and
YouTube (67%). Out of the total respondents, 60% stated that they use social media for
academic works such as academic discussion groups in WhatsApp and Facebook. According to Pearson's correlation analysis, academic performance is related with social media usage by
undergraduates (r = 0.472, p 0.000 > 0.05). Also, all the dimensions of social media usage
are positively correlated with academic performance; frequency of access, time spent on
social media and type of information shared/posted by indicating statistically significant,
moderate to substantial positive relationship with academic performance. The relationship is
statistically significant too. The findings confirmed that all the determinants have an impact
on the academic performance and that there is a moderately positive relationship between the
social media usage and the academic performance. It can be concluded that, social
networking sites, especially WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube can be used successfully to
support collaborative learning.
