Exploring the relationship of university students’ educational variables and the degree of their use of virtual social networks

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore relationships among the university students’ educational variables and their educational variables concerning educational, cultural and social dimensions. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was developed and validated for analyzing the relationship between the amount of time spent for using social networks and different dimensions of educational quality. The sample participants in this study included 400 students who were selected from a total of 3,500 students in Eastern and Western Azerbaijan provinces at north-west of Iran in 2017. Finally, 342 of 400 questionnaires were considered for analyzing. The Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients and multiple regression were used to analyze data. Findings The results proved that the highest correlation coefficient was related to social networks and education quality and the lowest correlation was related to social networks and cultural quality. The result of applying multiple regression proved that there is a linear relationship between the roles of using social networks in predicting students’ educational quality. Originality/value The role of academic and general social media in studying students’ educational quality at universities is still under researched. This situation provides a significant potential to explore on the effect of academic and general virtual social media in creating educational and cultural awareness among university’s students. The findings of the current study add to the existing literature by contributing to a better awareness of university student and applying appropriate strategies to conduct the education of students.

The Use of Internet and Social Networks During covid-19 in Greece

“…This study indicated that Internet and social networks during the pandemic have significant impact on peoples' information and entertainment supporting the findings [8,18,13,9,19]. They also use Internet and social networks either to be informed or for entertainment reasons and more particular in order to be informed about the political news around world, social news, economic news, health evolutions, communication with friends; as well as to play videogames, to gossip, to do shopping and to be informed has been replaced with digital ones, social networks are mainly used by young people within their leisure activities and diverse interpersonal communications [8,18,13,9,19],…”

“…are part of social media which includes except the social networks and other media such as blogs (WorldPress, Blogger etc), multimedia systems (iTunes, Youtube, Vimeo, etc), geolocatgion systems etc. Young people are using social networks for educational purposes, but the problem arises when these networks are mainly used within their leisure activities and diverse interpersonal communications [8,18,13,9,19].…”

Social Networks Consumption and Addiction in College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Educational Approach to Responsible Use

“…Regarding age, the average stood at 23.7 years old, the median was 22 years old and fashion was 21 years old. Regarding the branch of knowledge of their degree, 47.5% were undertaking studies linked to Social and Legal Sciences, 18.0% in Health Sciences, 16.4% in Arts and Humanities, 12.1% in Sciences, and 5.9% in Engineering and Architecture. Regarding the family variables, in both parents, a majority of basic training was observed: 46.7% in the studies of the mother and 52.0% in the parents.…”

“…In these new interactive societies, the sense of belonging and permanence is fragile and diffuse, and the relationships established through electronic devices are vulnerable and easily forgotten, unlike the relationships typical of analog societies [12]. Different studies have shown the interest of young people in the use of social networks in the educational sphere [13][14][15][16], but the problem lies in the fact that their massive use is created outside this sphere, within their leisure activities and diverse interpersonal communications [17][18][19][20][21][22], without there being controls and protocols established for their adequate use [7,[23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

Exploring the mobile learning needs amongst performing arts students

“…In particular, learning the language and culture of other countries on social networks using mobile devices without the restriction of time and place is even more effective (Zhang et al , 2017). In general, recent evidence shows that social networks have a significant impact on students’ educational quality (Jalali and Bouyer, 2019).…”