Shaye Price

Assignment 1: Research Proposal

February 26, 2018

Social media has been constantly changing its features and

programs that it provides. The continuous changing and developing of

activities in the field of social media has led the user demands to be

extremely high and left the definition of social media to be a challenge in

itself. Most social media courses for education include web blogs, wikis,

virtual games sites, multimedia platforms, and virtual social networks like

Facebook and Twitter. Joosten (2012) describes social media as technologies

meant for the actions of collaboration and communication within a

community.

Social media in the educational field has been a topic of

debate among educators, educational researchers, and social media

researchers. Several researches highlight the importance of social media

technologies for a well-controlled and efficient resource of utilization for

educational activities inside and outside the classroom. They advocate for

the use of these technologies for not only teacher to student, but student to

student interaction. They also validate an improvement in student learning,

to help the development in their skills and ability to comprehend new

content. Social media has been constantly changing over the past decade

just like education. The question of whether social media is negative or

positive within the classroom is still a debate among educators and

education researchers.

The purpose of this research is to study the effects of social

media on students’ performance. While ranking different social media

platforms, research finds Facebook is top in popularity and in user base

though there are many different types of social media. However, when it

comes to researching the impacts of social media in education, most

research has been found focusing on using popular social network like

Facebook (Tess 2013). The focus of this research study is to ask whether

social media has positive or negative impact on student performance, how

social media affects student performance, and is there a difference in

performance in those students who do and do not use social media?

To answer these questions, these literature reviews discuss

the relevant research that is useful to the objectives this proposal. Several

studies being used in this research were investigated and recently found

published in the past four to five years. The literature reviews the

innovative features offered by social media and how these feature relate to

student performance.
 Tess (2013) is a literature review paper based on the role of

social media in higher education within virtual and real classrooms. Tess

(2013) finds Facebook to be the most popular social networking site among

students in his research. The research also found that Social Impact, blogs,

and Twitter to be among the other popular social networks. The literature

survey found a mixture of opinion for using these types of social media in

the integration of technology for education. Many educational institutions

have established a support of social media into classroom learning, however,

the effective integration of social media into education is still a question for

researchers to ask. Most teachers are not willing to adopt social media into

their classrooms due to the lack of proper training and control of the

technology tool. Tess (2013) finds the effects on student performance in a

wide variety of correlations existing in literature. Some studies find that

students have negative to no effects and some have positive. Most of the

studies that have negative effects on students and their academic

performance rely on their behavior, poor performance, and personality

traits.

Gupta (2013) research is specific to the study of social

media’s impact on distance education. This research is significant due to

distant learning being more dependent upon using social networking. This

research inferred that using social media as a platform for academic

purposes has no impact upon student performance. Gupta further implies

that new online tools and technologies should be integrated into the

classroom to promote online engagement and form social networks for

student achievement.

The above literature has revealed only a small role that social

media plays within academic performance. These literatures give way to

more questions than answers. Within the past five years, all the advances in

social media and its popularity, is it a negative or positive advancement in

the classroom?
 References

Gupta, C. P., Singh, B., & Marwaha, T. (2013). Relationship between social

media and academic performance in distance education. Universal Journal of

Educational Research, 1(3), 185-190.

Joosten, T. (2012). Social media for educators: Strategies and best

practices. John Wiley & Sons.

Tess, P. A. (2013). The role of social media in higher education classes (real

and virtual)–A literature review. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(5), A60-

A68.
Section Not Evident Emerging Proficient Exemplary
I. Objectives and Purposes (2 pages)
This section should include: 0 1 2 3
 Background Information Information is Information is Information is
not provided. provided but relevant and relevant,
is unclear, adequate for sufficient, and
insufficient, the proposed clearly
or irrelevant. study. supports the
proposed
study.
 Statement of the research 0 1 2 3
problem and rationale for Information The research The research The research
the study not provided. problem is problem is problem is
stated, but is clearly stated clearly stated,
unclear, too and is relevant, and
broad/narrow researchable. researchable.
or irrelevant. Strong Rationale is
The rationale rationale extremely
for the study provided. The clear,
is unclear or rationale compelling,
weak. statement and clearly
generally supports the
justifies the research
research questions.
questions. There is a
clear link
between the
rationale and
the research
questions.
 Purpose 0 1 2 3-4
The goals are Purpose is not Purpose is Exceptionally
not stated. clearly clearly clear in
described. described. purpose.
Goals are Goals are Goals are
stated but are realistic, realistic,
unclear, adequately clearly stated,
irrelevant, or stated and and clearly
too generally aligned with
broad/narrow. aligned with the research
the research problem.
problem.
  Research Questions and 0 1 2-3 4-5
Hypotheses/ Propositions Information Questions/ Generally, Research
not provided or hypotheses/ questions questions are
no basis for propositions have proper clear, concise,
judgment. are missing, scope, are feasible, of
weak, or realistic, proper scope,
unclear. feasible, and and answer
Questions not adequately the purpose.
of sufficient phrased.
scope or are Each research
not feasible. question is
correctly
phrased, and
addresses
only one
aspect of the
research
problem.

 Definitions of key Key Definitions Definitions All key

concepts used in the concepts/terms for key for key concepts/term
research questions are not concepts/term concepts/term s are clearly
defined. s are provided s are provided defined/
but are and generally explained.
inaccurate or adequate.
unclear.

 Statement and The type of The type of The type of The type of
justification of the type of study is not study is study is study is
study to be conducted specified. specified but specified, but specified and
cannot be it may not be is the optimal
used to the most choice for the
investigate the adequate or specified
stated feasible way research
research to investigate questions.
questions. the proposed The
research justification
questions. The for this type
justification of study is
for this type compelling.
of study is
provided, but
may include
some
inaccuracies.
II. Literature Review (2 pages)
Criteria: 0 1 2 3
 Critical review of literature Information is Findings from Some Evidence of
 Relevance not provided, leading evidence of sound
 Conceptual/Theoretical irrelevant, researchers satisfactory knowledge
framework incomplete, are included knowledge and critical
 Alignment and or with minimal with limited review of the
inaccurate. critical critical review literature
commentary. of the relevant relevant to the
literature, but study.
Cited with gaps and
literature may or omissions. Developed a
not be clear,
relevant to the Conceptual/ appropriate,
study. theoretical and justified
framework is conceptual/
included; theoretical
however it is framework for
not fully the research.
developed or
justified.

Study may be
feasible.
Presentation and Writing

Criteria: 0 1 2
 Clarity Generally poor Reasonably Clear and correct use of
 Writing mechanics use of English clear and English characterized by a
 APA characterized correct use of clear style of expression, with
by numerous English few imprecise and/or incorrect
errors, unclear, characterized statements.
incorrect by generally
and/or illogical clear
statements. expression,
with relatively
few imprecise
and/or
incorrect
statements.
Total: