1. Exploring the Opportunities and Challenges of Social Media Use in Teaching and Learning Processes at Public Universities in Ethiopia
- Author
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Yohannes Ayalew Awoke and Mekonnen Hailemariam Zikargae
- Abstract
This study explored the opportunities and challenges of integrating social media into the teaching and learning process of Ethiopian universities. Universities have been under the influence of the impact of social media use among academia, students, and researchers. These inevitable academic needs addressed through a lens of uses and gratifications and social constructivism theory where used as a theoretical framework to conduct and analyze this study. A qualitative case study design used to investigate the current study by collecting data through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 37 participants where 32 were students and five department heads respectively. The main findings indicate that social media platforms such as Telegram, Email and YouTube are widely used by both teachers and students for educational purposes. Participants demonstrated that their university's use of social media for teaching and learning is commendable-valued, yet there is also a need to expand on its current utilization. Besides, social media paves improved communication, information sharing, collaborative learning, flexibility, cost-time savings, academic and research collaboration, fosters enthusiasm and creativity, and smooth relationships among the communicators. Moreover, the study reveals that distractions from non-educational content, lack of responsibility, unethical and informal language usage, lack of feedback, infrastructure issues, confusion and dependence, blurring of boundaries between students and teachers, and academic dishonesty are the major drawbacks of utilizing social media in the teaching and learning processes. These findings will be important to take some lessons and improve the quality of social media use in teaching and learning processes. We suggest self-regulation and management when utilizing social media for educational purposes.
- Published
- 2023
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