Ntukidem, Ime Uduak; Asuquo, Eno Ndarake (Ph.D) & Inyang, Esther Romanus
Abstract
This study was carried out to investigate the use of Social Media (ICT) Sites by Senior Secondary School Students in the teaching and learning of biology in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted of all the teachers (222) and students (4,132) in public senior secondary schools in Uyo educational zone, Akwa Ibom State. The sample size comprised of five (5) co-educational public secondary schools purposively selected. One hundred and fifty (150) students and one hundred and twenty (120) teachers were randomly selected for this study. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. Two structured instruments were developed and used by the researchers for data collection. Each of the instruments is made up of a 15-item questionnaire titled “Biology Teachers’ Use of Social Media (BTUSM) and Biology Students’ Use of Social Media (BSUSM)” on a two-point scale of Agreed and Disagreed respectively. These instruments were validated by three experts, all in University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, for both face and content validation and the reliability coefficient was 0.85. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics (mean) and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC)). The result of the study revealed that students visit social media sites regularly for purposes other than the learning of sciences (biology) reflecting teachers’ lack of social media usage on students. From the result of the findings, the researchers recommended among others that the federal and state governments should integrate ICT into teachers’ training curriculum at both colleges of Education and University levels and there should be a synergy between the policy makers and the policy implementers for compliance and successful implementation of the policy.