ABSTRACT
The study explored secondary school students’ views about the use of social media for the development of writing skill. The study examined students’ social media usage pattern and what they use it for, it also examined students’ view about the use of social media for the development of development of writing skill based on intervening variables such as sex and age. To guide the study, five research questions were raised two of which were hypothesized and tested at 0.05. level of significance.
The study adopted the descriptive survey research design which utilized quantitative data collection method. All the 1,850 students in the seven public secondary schools in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State made up the population. The sample was made up of 426 (196 boys and 230 girls) secondary school students. The stratified random sampling technique was adopted in selecting the sample from the population. One instrument, a questionnaire, was used for data collection. The questionnaire is made up of two sections. A and B. Section A is structured to elicit demographic data of the respondents such as sex and age. Section B is structured to explore students’ use of social media and their views about its use for the development of writing skill. Face and content validity of the instrument was determined by researcher’s supervisor and two language educators. To ascertain the reliability of the instrument, trail testing of the instrument was carried out using 20 students who were not part of the main study. The reliability of the instrument was estimated. Using Cronbach Alpha formula and the reliability obtained for the different subsections are – Section B1 = 0.77, Section B2 = 0.93. Descriptive statistics of frequency counts, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while Independent Sample t-test and ANOVA were used to test the hypotheses. All the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance.
The findings revealed that Facebook is very popular among secondary school students in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State. They use it mostly to acquire knowledge. The result also revealed that students have positive views about the use of social media for the development of writing skill. Sex did not significantly influence students’ view about the use of social media for the development of writing skill, but age has influence of students’ view. It was recommended amongst others that teachers should be encouraged to explore the use of social media in the teaching of writing skill.
