CHAPTER 1

The Problem and its Background

Introduction

Technology has always been advancing throughout the years. It has made a

big impact on people especially on lifesyle. In our present generation, students are

obsessed in using gadgets. As a result,students tend to involve gadgets in their

everyday lives including in their studies. “Students tend to use up more time in using

gadgets than in studying which affect the student’s habits and academic

performance”(Study Moose.com,2015)

Today, Facebook is considered as one of the most popular platforms for online

social networking among youth. Every technological innovation has been a topic of

debate and center of researchers’ attention and same is the case with the development

of social networking sites. Various researchers have conducted studies to pinpoint the

several impacts of these sites on their usuers and findings suggested both bright and

dark aspects.Hence,many countries gained open access to the internet due to rapid

advances in information technology within last twenty years(Kuppuswamy &

Narayan, 2012).

Most people think that technology is one of the best things to have happened

to the world yet people like complaining that teens these days walk around their faces

glued to phones and I-pads,etc because of that application called Facebook. They are

talking like they don’t eat,sleep, do homework, hang out with friends, read

educational books, and many more. Some students spend too much on time on

Facebook but with a little discipline, everyone can use it in a decent way. Internet

makes life easier, and that make some of students become lazy. But if they master
using it properly, they can achieve, learn and become creative in many ways.

Technology is not the problem. It is the teens specifically those who used Facebook

application for bullying, destruction and judgements. Facebook makes things easier

and possible, but it is still up for students and people who used it.

In a global context, many people put their lives on Facebook since it became

the gateway to connect with family, friends, and with other professional means. Jay

Baer(2017), points out that for many, the lines have completely blurred between

studies and personal lives. Facebook users have no longer a personal life. They just

have a life. It’s all together in one place through the ways one communicates

online(Harrison,2017)

Similarly, Gremlin (2016) shows a result that technology is a major

advancement in civilization. However, it is making everyone change most especially

on the part of students who are still in process of learning. They do not have enough

knowledge, yet they act like they know everything in Facebook. Facebook affect the

study habit of a student in many aspects. Using gadgets, a student start becoming

stupid, dependable, and careless and do all of his/her work in shortcut.

Conceptual Framework

Digital-based learning has become the language of the 21ist century. Learning

outcomes seen to be relevant would include increase interest in the subject matter,

improvement in the objective performance like test, transfer where learners can apply

the skills learned in gaming and other forms of digital means in real life situations and

likewise efficiency because of getting motivated. In studies, it was seen as a good

intervention to improve learning outcomes (All, Castellar & Looy, 2015)

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 In the academe, one of the social platforms being used widely in acdemic

institutions is facebook. Not only between students and teachers but also in higher

hierarchies like offices and agencies, facebook has become the primary means to

communicate messages be it personal, social or correspondence.

Given the situation, the researchers formulated a qualitative model that

explores the leaners’ views regarding the role of facebook in their academic studies

which is shown in the paradigm below.

Paradigm of the Study

Exploratory
Students' Views Approach Emergent
on the Role of through Innovative
INPUT Facebook in PROCESS Interview, OUTPUT Teaching
Academic observation and Strategy and
Studies Dashboard Means
Discussion

Figure 1: Empirical Model that shows on what is the role of facebook in

their academic studies

The model shows an Input-Process-Output diagram where the input

contains the views of students regarding the role of facebook in their

academic studies. Such views will be verifiable through interview,

observation and dash board discussion which are exactly the process in

gathering data. It will be expected that through the study, the output is

providing general insights on what emergent innovative strategy can be

incorporated.

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Statement of the Problem

This study shall generally describe the role of facebook to the academic

studies of students.

Specifically, it will seek to answer to the following questions:

2. To what extent facebook influence students’ academic studies?

3. To what extent students are addicted to Facebook usage?

Scope and Limitations

This research will focus on assessing the role of facebook in the academic

studies of students. It will make use of qualitative exploratory design where 30

respondents from grade 7-12 were chosen through stratified sampling. Respondents

will be coming from the school of researchers, Barucboc National High and are

enrolled for the academic year 2018-2019.

In gathering the data, researhers will use semi-structured interview,

observation checklist and dashboard discussion adapted from Bedassa, F. (2014).

Reliability, validity and representativeness of the expected result will be considered as

limitations of the study.

Significance of the Study

This study that will explore the significance or role of facbook in the acdemic

studies of the learners which generally hopes to contibute insights on how facebook

will be intergrated in classroom learning. Specifically, it wishes to be beneficial in

the following:

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 School Head can consider the result to implement program in the school that

centers on academic use of facebook as an avenue of learning.

Teachers may welcome it as an innovative strategy and a means of teaching

students her lesson.

Students can make use of facebook in their acdemic studies in a positive and

productive way.

Researchers will harness their research skills which they can share to their

classmates and be motivated as well to conduct other studies.

Future researchers will make use of it as a benchmark to conduct similar or

related studies.

Definition of Terms

Categorizing. Labeling segments of information into specific themes.

Coding. It is a process of analyzing qualitative data where ideas are not just labeled

but also link to the other ideas.

Dashboard discussion. It is a created group for all the users of facebook at Barucboc

National High School where the researchers see, and manage exchange of views

regarding the role of facebook in the students’ academic studies.

Empirical. The use of gathering data through the use of observation.

Facebook. It is an online social networking website where people can create profiles,

share information such as photos and quotes about themselves, and respond or link to

the information posted by others.

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Observation- The process by which an observant uses his/her five senses to gather

information or data.

Observation Checklict. The observation guide tool of the researchers which

comprises of observed and not observed column and adjacent is the remarks.

Semi-structured interview- A qualitative method of inquiry that combines a pre-

determined set of open questions(questions that prompt discussion) with the

opportunity for the researchers to explore particular themes or responses further.

Sub-category. It is dividing ideas or texts into segments of information

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 CHAPTER II

Review of Related Literature and Studies

This part presents relevant foreign and local literature and studies that has

significant bearing with the present study. These significant information and

discussion greatly helped the researcher to gain deeper understanding to the factors

that influence students’ views of the role of facebook in their academic studies.

Related Literature

This portion presents related literature , which comprise both foreign and local

literature. The insights culled from this readings proved valuable in the development

and completion of the study.

Foreign literature

Gold (2011) stated that facebook is the forefront of the social media craze, has

over 500 million active users on its website every month. It is emerged on February 4,

2004, when a 19-year-old sophomore Harvard student named Mark Zukerberg

founded the revolutionary site to connect Harvard University students (Grossman,

2010). But later, this site allows users to build social networks with hundreds or even

thousands of people around the world of which university students are one of the

primary demographics using Facebook, with features such as photos, wall posts, and

status updates becoming seemingly irresistible to those who want to connect with

their friends.

Facebook has provided some insight into the specific use that students get out

of Facebook. Some studies have discussed levels of appropriateness of

communication between faculty and students, gender differences, frequency and type

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of usage, and motivation for online presence (Clipson, Wilson, & DuFrene, 2012).

One could notice that facebook is mainly used to keep in touch with other people, that

is not in a conventional way as users tend to ‘spy’ on other users’ profile. This

phenomenon leads to a growing exhibitionism, which is in turn related to individual’s

personality traits. Used of Facebook is also influenced by peers and experienced with

the website.(Di Capua, 2012)

Martinez Aleman and Wartman (2009) sought to better understand the campus

culture of Facebook through the lens of college students. The researchers examined

college students ‘thoughts and perceptions of Facebook use through an ethnographic

study, where they found students use Facebook for a myriad of reasons (Martinez

Aleman &Wartman, 2009). The authors devised four consistent themes to portray

their findings of college student Facebook use: (1) use-consciousness, (2) campus

culture, (3) identity factors, and (4) voyeurism and impression management (Martinez

Aleman & Wartman, 2009). The authors captured four students ‘voices using the

aforementioned themes. The four diverse students shared multitudes of information

regarding their experiences with Facebook.

Foreign Studies

Keol Lim and Ellen B Meier (2012) in their study clearly highlighted how and

why Korean students use Social Networking Sites specifically facebook and what are

the advantages they find by using Social Networking Sites. The study as such begins

with the explanation of how the number of international students getting admission in

U S universities has increased. It also refers to psychological experiences of

international students such as disorientation, nostalgic depressive reactions, and

feelings of isolation, alienation and powerlessness. However, international students

may have limited ways to cope with stress, which could lead to stress-related illnesses

8
such as anxiety or depression. Hence these limitations make it hard for international

students to acclimatize themselves new circumstances.

A study by Abu-Shanab and Al-Tarawneh (2013) explored the advantages and

disadvantages of Facebook utilizing university students. A sample of 206 students

responded to a survey containing 10 advantages and 10 disadvantages of Facebook,

and yielded interesting results. The study did not focus on students’ academic

performance, but took the issue as a general view of social media influence. This

study will explore the relationship between performance and SN use.

Today, Facebook is comprised of all types of people, but college students still

make up the largest percentage of active Facebook users, which is roughly 30% of all

users (insidefacebook.com, 2009). To date, Facebook serves roughly 500 million

people enabling them to share multitudes of information and connect with others

(Fletcher, 2010).

Teclehaimanot and Hickman’s (2011) study helps to develop an understanding

of what students see as appropriate in student-teacher interactions on Facebook. The

study used students that were enrolled in selected courses at the College of Education

at the University of Toledo. There were a total of four classes, two were

undergraduates while the remaining other two were graduate level classes.The results

indicated that students found passive behaviors (e.g., reading or viewing posts) to be

more appropriate than active behaviors; students were uncomfortable with poking

their teachers and having their teachers poke them. Students were uncomfortable at

commenting at items posted by their teachers and having their teachers comment on

the students’ posts. There seems to be some variability in what students consider

appropriate and inappropriate when teachers send friend invitations.

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 There was a significant difference between male and female students; male

students found student-teacher interactions on Facebook to be more appropriate than

the female students (Teclhaimanot & Hickman, 2011). To determine if self-disclosure

could have an impact, Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds (2007) tested this idea with 133

under graduates mostly freshmen. After a simple frequency distribution, gender was

found to not affect their perceptions.

Malesky, Jr. and Peters (2012) conducted another study on the opinions of

university students and faculty members about the faculty-student interaction on

social networking sites. Their survey of 459 students and 159 faculty members at a

midsize public university in the Southeastern United States found that 180 students

and 46 professors answered no to, “do you think it is appropriate for professors to

have accounts on online social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace?

p.142” There was a significant difference between female (40%) and male students

(30.8%) who responded no. Similarly, more students than faculty answered no.

Upon further analysis, Malesky Jr. and Peters (2012) found that students rated

“looking up students out of curiosity as to who would be in his or her class the

upcoming semester; professor used social networking sites to learn more about his/her

students before the semester started; professor attempted to verify the veracity of a

student’s excuse for missing an exam; professor looked up a student in his or her class

that he/she thought was attractive, p. 142” as significantly inappropriate. The only

scenario that the students found appropriate was when the professor used social

networking sites to learn student names.

Overall there is no consistency about what students find inappropriate when

faculty use any social networking websites for their classes. Teclhaimanot and

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Hickman (2011) found that students find it appropriate for professors to use Facebook

for passive behaviors while Malesky, Jr., and Peters (2012) showed student

dissatisfaction with professors using social networking sites to check on students.

None of these studies take into consideration the ethnicity of the students

Local Literature

Social networking sites let individuals to present themselves and begin or keep

connections with others. The extremely popular social network site for students in

different levels that is Facebook has already printed a big impact on their lives. The

site can be used towards work-related contexts, romantic relationship commencement

and connecting those with shared interests. Members may use the site to mingle with

people they already know offline or to find new friends. Facebook permits its users to

present themselves in an Internet profile, build up "friends" who can post comments

on each other's walls, and view each other's page.

Facebook associates can also join groups based on common interests, see what

things they have in common, and learn each other’s hobbies, interests, favorite music,

and romantic relationship status through their pages.

According to GMA news (2018), the Philippines has a higher density of

Facebook users than many Southeast Asian countries, and Filipino Facebook users

seem evenly distributed across the country, according to an infographic released by a

Facebook engineer on Tuesday. The graphic shows the connections between

Facebook's 500 million users, with white dots representing users' current cities and

blue lines representing friendships between people in those cities.

Paul Butler, an intern with Facebook's engineering team, created the

visualization because he wanted to see what Facebook data had to say about the

11
interconnections between people in various cities around the world. Although not

fully comprehensive, the infographic does corroborate earlier reports that the

Philippines has the sixth largest population of Facebook users in the world and the

world's fifth heaviest social network usage. "Visualizing data is like photography.

Instead of starting with a blank canvas, you manipulate the lens used to present the

data from a certain angle."

Local Studies

According to studies of Andres Bonifacio College, Facebook has an impact to

students. Some students are using it for educational purposes. Students would like to

do some online collaboration with classmates. It is said that using Facebook boosts

students’ self-esteem even more

(https://www.slideshare.net/AnjenetteColumnas/research-thesis-the-impact-of-

facebook-usage-to-the-academic-performance-of-the-4th-year-education-students-in-

andres-bonifacio-college).

Students use Facebook to maintain their former network of high school friends

and also to build and sustain bonds with new friends on their campuses (Ellison et al.,

2007, 2011; Junco & Mastrodicasa, 2007). They use Facebook to initiate and maintain

friendships and to seek out new information about those in their social circle (Ellison

et al., 2011). The practice of social information seeking is related to student’s

perceived levels of social capital (the resources obtained from their relationships and

interactions such as emotional support (Ellison et al., 2011). Social capital is related to

improved self-esteem, fewer psychological and behavioral problems, and improved

quality of life (McPherson et al., 2014).

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 Facebook has been the most researched platform for teaching and learning

(Manca & Ranieri, 2013; Tess, 2013). Manca and Ranieri (2013) discovered 23

empirical studies of using Facebook as a learning environment. Manca and Ranieri

(2013) identified five main educational uses of Facebook:

1) support class discussions and helping students engage in collaborative

learning;

2) developing content;

3) sharing educational resources;

4) delivering content to expose students to extra-curricular resources; and

5) to support self-managed learning.

They note that only four studies have examined how Facebook relates to

learning outcomes and found positive impacts on learning outcomes such as

improvement in English writing skills, knowledge, and vocabulary (Manca & Ranieri,

2013).

Facebook has been used as a replacement for learning and course

management system (LCMS) discussion boards. For instance, Hurt et al. (2012)

examined student outcomes from and preferences for Facebook use. They assigned

students to either use Facebook or the learning management system (LMS) in two

courses. They found that the Facebook group reported better educational outcomes

than the LMS group. They also found that 43% of the LMS users said they would

have contributed more if they had used Facebook; while only 12% of Facebook users

said they would have participated more with a switch to the LMS. Holly head,

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Edwards, and Holt (2012) found that students preferred to create their own Facebook

groups when no official-course related ones were available instead of using the LMS.

Synthesis of the Study

Based on the reviewed literature and studies, facebook has been one of the

most visited social networking sites. Nowadays, facebook users comprise all types of

people from different walks of life. However, students still make up the greatest

number of its active users. It has been reported that they use this site to share

multitudes of information and connect with other people especially with their friends

and love ones.

Facebook is not only used for sharing various information but it has also been

utilize for educational purposes. Studies found out that facebook has positive impacts

on the learning outcomes such as improvement in English writing skills, knowledge,

and vocabulary.

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 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the research design, samples and sampling procedure,

the data gathering instrument, data gathering procedure, the data analysis and the

statistical tool.

Research Design

A qualitative exploratory research will be used by the researchers to describe

the role of facebook in the academic studies of the students. In particular, it will

explore the ways on how students use facebook in their academic studies, to what

extent they have been addicted in using facebook and to what extent facebook has

influenced their academic studies.

Locale

The study will be conducted at Barucboc National High School which is

located at Barangay Barucboc, Quezon, Isabela. The school offers both junior and

senior high school education that is, from Grade 7 to 12. In the senior high school

curriculum, it has General Academic Strand (GAS), Technical-Vocational

Livelihood-Information, Communication Technology (TVL-ICT) and Technical-

Vocational Livelihood-Home Economics.

Samples and Sampling Procedure

The participants of the study will be the students of Barucboc National High

School who are certified facebook users and are purposively chosen. They will be

both from the junior and senior high school curriculum of Barucboc National High

School school enrolled for the academic year 2018-2019.

15
Data Gathering Instrument

The researchers will use semi-structured interview to collect data from the

respondents. The interview protocol will be adapted by the researcher from previous

studies similar to this piece (Bedassa, F. 2014). They will also be invited in a

dashboard discussion to further gauge in what ways they use facebook for academic

studies.

Moreover, the researchers will conduct interview to parents and teachers

regarding their observation on how facebook can impact academic studies. This will

be done for triangulation purposes.

Data Gathering Procedure

The researchers will design and develop an interview protocol and observation

guide based on the study of Bedassa, F. (2014). It will be checked, edited and

validated by the language teachers, school head and statistician teacher. It will be pilot

try-out to participants. In the process of piloting, the researchers will ask permission

from the School Head. Once done, they will proceed to the administration of the pilot

interview to at least 10 certified facebook users. After which, the tool will be

subjected to reliability test.

Then when reliability of the tool is established, the researchers will administer

it to the chosen respondents of the study. They will be provided instructions so that

the needed data will be provided accurately. Once the semi-structured interview is

finished, the researchers will immediately encode, transcribe and archive the data.

Confidentiality will be safeguarded. As a finale, the researchers will subject the data

to analysis.

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Statistical Treatment of Data

To analyze the data gathered, the researchers will describe the general themes

that will emerge from the data provided by the respondents. It will follow the

procedure below:

1. Empirical data (information based on the observation and transcribed

interview) will be coded.

2. Sub-categories will be constructed.

3. Coding or labeling of related data.

4. Categorizing the emerging data.

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http://www.academia.edu/9000386/the_Impact_of_Facebook_Addiction_on_the_Aca
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