The associations between social-media use and academic performance among undergraduate students in biology

Abstract

Recent studies have been conducted in regards to the use of social- media by students and how it can impact his/her academic performance. However, much of this research has been focused on how to use social-media websites in the classroom to facilitate student learning. Therefore, we aimed to address how the use of social-media can be either beneficial or detrimental to undergraduate students, with respect to their academic performance. We distributed a survey to 234 participants, all attending the same four-year university. Throughout the survey, the students self-reported their grade point average (GPA), study habits, and social-media use. We established that female students use social-media websites more often than their male peers, and using a Pearson’s correlation, we found that GPA negatively correlated with the number of social-media websites to which students subscribe (p < 0.05). Furthermore, we found that using more social-media websites correlated positively with the amount of time students spend using social-media platforms on a daily basis. Although previous studies indicate that social-media websites should be incorporated into the classroom, our results suggest that this addition may have negative effects on the study habits and academic performance of undergraduate students, particularly those within the field of biological sciences.

Keywords:

• Social media
• grade point average
• biology
• undergraduate
• academic performance

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Dr. Randy Larkins for his help throughout this entire study, with everything from consent forms to proof reading. We would also like to thank Dr. Ginger Fisher, who aided in survey development and guidance throughout the experiment. Lastly, we are indebted to Dr. Mark Thomas, Dr. James Haughian, Dr. Ginger Fisher and Dr. Heather Rudolph, who allowed us to survey their biology classes.