Analysing the Impact of Social Media on Students’ Academic Performance: A Comparative Study of Extraversion and Introversion Personality

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Abstract

The advent of technology in education has seen a revolutionary change in the teaching–learning process. Social media is one such invention which has a major impact on students’ academic performance. This research analyzed the impact of social media on the academic performance of extraversion and introversion personality students. Further, the comparative study between these two personalities will be analysed on education level (postgraduate and undergraduate) and gender (male and female). The research was initiated by identifying the factors of social media impacting students’ academic performance. Thereafter, the scale was developed, validated and tested for reliability in the Indian context. Data were collected from 408 students segregated into 202 males and 206 females. Two hundred and thirty-four students are enrolled in postgraduation courses, whereas 174 are registered in the undergraduate programme. One-way ANOVA has been employed to compare the extraversion and introversion students of different education levels and gender. A significant difference is identified between extraversion and introversion students for the impact of social media on their academic performance.

Keywords: Social networking sites, Academic performance, Social media, Personality traits, Education levels, Extraversion and introversion, Gender

Introduction

Social Networking Sites (SNS) gained instant popularity just after the invention and expansion of the Internet. Today, these sites are used the most to communicate and spread the message. The population on these social networking sites (SNS) has increased exponentially. Social networking sites (SNS) in general are called social media (Boyd & Ellison, 2008). Social media (SM) is used extensively to share content, initiate discussion, promote businesses and gain advantages over traditional media. Technology plays a vital role to make SM more robust by reducing security threats and increasing reliability (Stergiou et al., 2018).

As of January 2022, more than 4.95 billion people are using the Internet worldwide, and around 4.62 billion are active SM users (Johnson, 2022). In India, the number of Internet users was 680 million by January 2022, and there were 487 million active social media users (Basuray, 2022). According to Statista Research Department (2022), in India, SM is dominated by two social media sites, i.e. YouTube and Facebook. YouTube has 467 million users followed by Facebook with 329 million users.

Although almost all age groups are using SM platforms to interact and communicate with their known community (Whiting & Williams, 2013), it has been found that social media sites are more popular among youngsters and specifically among students. They use SM for personal as well as academic activities extensively (Laura et al., 2017). Other than SM, from the last two years, several online platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet are preferred to organize any kind of virtual meetings, webinars and online classes. These platforms were used worldwide to share and disseminate knowledge across the defined user community during the pandemic. Social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp and blogs are comparatively more open and used to communicate with public and/or private groups. Earlier these social media platforms were used only to connect with friends and family, but gradually these platforms became one of the essential learning tools for students (Park et al., 2009). To enhance the teaching–learning process, these social media sites are explored by all types of learning communities (Dzogbenuku et al., 2019). SM when used in academics has both advantages and disadvantages. Social media helps to improve academic performance, but it may also distract the students from studies and indulge them in other non-academic activities (Alshuaibi et al., 2018).

Here, it is important to understand that the personality traits of students, their education level and gender are critical constructs to determine academic performance. There are different personality traits of an individual such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and introversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (McCrae & Costa, 1987). This cross-functional research is an attempt to study the impact of social media on the academic performance of students while using extraversion and introversion personality traits, education levels and gender as moderating variables.

Literature Review

There has been a drastic change in the internet world due to the invention of social media sites in the last ten years. People of all age groups now share their stories, feelings, videos, pictures and all kinds of public stuff on social media platforms exponentially (Asur & Huberman, 2010). Youth, particularly from the age group of 16–24, embraced social media sites to connect with their friends and family, exchange information and showcase their social status (Boyd & Ellison, 2008). Social media sites have many advantages when used in academics. The fun element of social media sites always helps students to be connected with peers and teachers to gain knowledge (Amin et al., 2016). Social media also enhances the communication between teachers and students as this are no ambiguity and miscommunication from social media which eventually improves the academic performance of the students (Oueder & Abousaber, 2018).

When social media is used for educational purposes, it may improve academic performance, but some associated challenges also come along with it (Rithika & Selvaraj, 2013). If social media is incorporated into academics, students try to also use it for non-academic discussions (Arnold & Paulus, 2010). The primary reason for such distraction is its design as it is designed to be a social networking tool (Qiu et al., 2013). According to Englander et al. (2010), the usage of social media in academics has more disadvantages than advantages. Social media severely impacts the academic performance of a student. The addiction to social media is found more among the students of higher studies which ruins the academic excellence of an individual (Nalwa & Anand, 2003). Among the social media users, Facebook users’ academic performance was worse than the nonusers or users of any other social media network. Facebook was found to be the major distraction among students (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010). However, other studies report contrary findings and argued that students benefited from chatting (Jain et al., 2012), as it improves their vocabulary and writing skills (Yunus & Salehi, 2012). Social media can be used either to excel in academics or to devastate academics. It all depends on the way it is used by the students. The good or bad use of social media in academics is the users’ decision because both the options are open to the students (Landry, 2014).

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) defined social media as user-generated content shared on web 2.0. They have also classified social media into six categories:

Social Networking Sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are the social networking sites where a user may create their profile and invite their friends to join. Users may communicate with each other by sharing common content.

Blogging Sites: Blogging sites are individual web pages where users may communicate and share their knowledge with the audience.

Content Communities and Groups: YouTube and Slideshare are examples of content communities where people may share media files such as pictures, audio and video and PPT presentations.

Virtual Worlds: During COVID-19, this type of social media was used the most. In the virtual world, users meet with each other at some decided virtual place and can do the pre-decided things together. For example, the teacher may decide on a virtual place of meeting, and students may connect there and continue their learning.

Collaborative Content Sites: Wikipedia is an example of a collaborative content site. It permits many users to work on the same project. Users have all rights to edit and add the new content to the published project.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are in trend since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Raja & Kallarakal, 2020). MOOCs courses are generally free, and anyone may enrol for them online. Many renowned institutions have their online courses on MOOCs platform which provides a flexible learning opportunity to the students. Students find them useful to enhance their knowledge base and also in career development. Many standalone universities have collaborated with the MOOCs platform and included these courses in their curriculum (Chen, 2013).

Security and privacy are the two major concerns associated with social media. Teachers are quite apprehensive in using social media for knowledge sharing due to the same concerns (Fedock et al., 2019). It was found that around 72% teachers were reluctant to use social media platforms due to integrity issues and around 63% teachers confirmed that security needs to be tightened before using social media in the classroom (Surface et al., 2014). Proper training on security and privacy, to use social media platforms in academics, is needed for students and teachers (Bhatnagar & Pry, 2020).

The personality traits of a student also play a significant role in deciding the impact of social media on students’ academic performance. Personality is a dynamic organization which simplifies the way a person behaves in a situation (Phares, 1991). Human behaviour has further been described by many renowned researchers. According to Lubinski (2000), human behaviour may be divided into five factors, i.e. cognitive abilities, personality, social attitudes, psychological interests and psychopathology. These personality traits are very important characteristics of a human being and play a substantial role in work commitment (Macey & Schneider, 2008). Goldberg (1993) elaborated on five dimensions of personality which are commonly known as the Big Five personality traits. The traits are “openness vs. cautious”; “extraversion vs. introversion”; “agreeableness vs. rational”; “conscientiousness vs. careless”; and “neuroticism vs. resilient”.

It has been found that among all personality traits, the “extraversion vs. introversion” personality trait has a greater impact on students’ academic performance (Costa & McCrae, 1999). Extrovert students are outgoing, talkative and assertive (Chamorro et al., 2003). They are positive thinkers and comfortable working in a crowd. Introvert students are reserved and quiet. They prefer to be isolated and work in silos (Bidjerano & Dai, 2007). So, in the present study, we have considered only the “extraversion vs. introversion” personality trait. This study is going to analyse the impact of social media platforms on students’ academic performance by taking the personality trait of extraversion and introversion as moderating variables along with their education level and gender.

Research Gap

Past research by Choney (2010), Karpinski and Duberstein (2009), Khan (2009) and Kubey et al. (2001) was done mostly in developed countries to analyse the impact of social media on the students’ academic performance, effect of social media on adolescence, and addictiveness of social media in students. There are no published research studies where the impact of social media was studied on students’ academic performance by taking their personality traits, education level and gender all three together into consideration. So, in the present study, the impact of social media will be evaluated on students’ academic performance by taking their personality traits (extraversion and introversion), education level (undergraduate and postgraduate) and gender (male and female) as moderating variables.

Objectives of the Study

Based on the literature review and research gap, the following research objectives have been defined:

To identify the elements of social media impacting student's academic performance and to develop a suitable scale

To analyse the impact of social media on students’ academic performance using extraversion and introversion personality trait, education level and gender as moderating variables

Research Methodology

Sampling Technique

Convenience sampling was used for data collection. An online google form was floated to collect the responses from 408 male and female university students of undergraduation and postgraduation streams.

Measure

Objective 1 To identify the elements of social media impacting student's academic performance and to develop a suitable scale.

A structured questionnaire was employed to collect the responses from 408 students of undergraduate and postgraduate streams. The questionnaire was segregated into three sections. In section one, demographic details such as gender, age and education stream were defined. Section two contained the author’s self-developed 16-item scale related to the impact of social media on the academic performance of students. The third section had a standardized scale developed by John and Srivastava (1999) of the Big Five personality model.

Demographics

There were 408 respondents (students) of different education levels consisting of 202 males (49.5%) and 206 females (50.5%). Most of the respondents (87%) were from the age group of 17–25 years. 234 respondents (57.4) were enrolled on postgraduation courses, whereas 174 respondents (42.6) were registered in the undergraduate programme. The result further elaborates that WhatsApp with 88.6% and YouTube with 82.9% are the top two commonly used platforms followed by Instagram with 76.7% and Facebook with 62.3% of students. 65% of students stated that Google doc is a quite useful and important application in academics for document creation and information dissemination.

Validity and Reliability of Scale

Objective 2 Scale validity and reliability.

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and Cronbach’s alpha test were used to investigate construct validity and reliability, respectively.

The author’s self-designed scale of ‘social media impacting students’ academic performance’ consisting of 16 items was validated using exploratory factor analysis. The principle component method with varimax rotation was applied to decrease the multicollinearity within the items. The initial eigenvalue was set to be greater than 1.0 (Field, 2005). Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) with 0.795 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity having significant values of 0.000 demonstrated the appropriateness of using exploratory factor analysis.

The result of exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha is shown in Table ​ Table1. 1 . According to Sharma and Behl (2020), “High loading on the same factor and no substantial cross-loading confirms convergent and discriminant validity respectively”.

Table 1

Exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha for the self-developed scale of “Social media impact on academic performance”

The self-developed scale was segregated into four factors, namely “Accelerating Impact”, “Deteriorating Impact”, “Social Media Prospects” and “Social Media Challenges”.

The first factor, i.e. “Accelerating Impact”, contains items related to positive impact of social media on students’ academic performance. Items in this construct determine the social media contribution in the grade improvement, communication and knowledge sharing. The second factor “Deteriorating Impact” describes the items which have a negative influence of social media on students’ academic performance. Items such as addiction to social media and distraction from studies are an integral part of this factor. “Social Media Prospects” talk about the opportunities created by social media for students’ communities. The last factor “Social Media Challenges” deals with security and privacy issues created by social media sites and the threat of cyberbullying which is rampant in academics.

The personality trait of an individual always influences the social media usage pattern. Therefore, the impact of social media on the academic performance of students may also change with their personality traits. To measure the personality traits, the Big Five personality model was used. This model consists of five personality traits, i.e. “openness vs. cautious”; “extraversion vs. introversion”; “agreeableness vs. rational”; “conscientiousness vs. careless”; and “neuroticism vs. resilient”. To remain focussed on the scope of the study, only a single personality trait, i.e. “extraversion vs. introversion” with 6 items was considered for analysis. A reliability test of this existing scale using Cronbach’s alpha was conducted. Prior to the reliability test, reverse scoring applicable to the associated items was also calculated. Table ​ Table2 2 shows the reliability score, i.e. 0.829.

Table 2

Cronbach’s alpha test for the scale of extraversion vs. introversion personality traits

Objective 3 To analyse the impact of social media on students’ academic performance using extraversion and introversion personality traits, education level and gender as moderating variables.

The research model shown in Fig. 1 helps in addressing the above objective.