STUDENTS’ AWARENESS AND READINESS TOWARDS UTILIZATION OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BIOLOGY EDUCATION IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN NIGER STATE

Abstract

There are several benefits when Biology students in public universities are taught using social media in their classrooms, these benefits include: students will have better engagement, improved learning experiences and interactions among the students. This study investigates the students’ awareness and readiness towards utilization of social media for biology education in public universities in Niger State. Descriptive survey research design was used for the study. Two research questions were raised and two null hypotheses, randomly sample of 120 (males = 73 and female = 47) biology education students in universities in Niger State was used for this study. Instrument used to gather data was Awareness and Readiness Social Media Biology Questionnaire (ARSOMEBQ) was used for data collection. Data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation while ANOVA was used to test the two null hypotheses that were formulated. The findings of the study indicated that there was no significant difference in the mean male and female awareness of universities students towards utilization of social media for biology education in Niger State. Also, there was no significant difference in the readiness of male and female universities students towards utilization of social media for biology education. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that social media should be used as a tool in universities in Niger State for biology instructional delivery in order to act as supplementary teaching and learning materials. Also, both male and female biology education students should be motivated in order to make use of social media for instructional delivery in their academic activities.