A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF USING SOCIAL NETWORKING AS A TOOL FOR LEARNING (EDUCATION) BY MALE AND FEMALE COLLEGE YOUTH AT UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL

Abstract

Science has given us many wonderful gifts. One of greatest gifts of science is educational technology and its use in educational process. It has completely changed our mode of teaching and learning process. Use of computer assisted teaching; audio visual aids, social networking etc. have found their place in each institution of the world. Most of the college youth believe that use of social networking fascinates learning process. The purpose of the present research study was to access the attitudes of college youth towards social networking as a tool for education. The present study investigation aimed at studying the attitude and impact of social networking of college youth studying in Government Degree colleges of Jammu. A random sampling technique was employed for selecting the sample. The sample of 180 college youth was taken from selected Degree Colleges affiliated to Cluster University of Jammu. In the present study, independent variables (gender: male and female) and dependent

variable (attitudes and impact) were collected through survey method and self- prepared tool was used to assess attitude of college youth towards social networking

as a tool for education. The finding revealed that the male college youth uses LinkedIn and Twitter more , while female college youth uses Facebook ,WhatsApp and YouTube more. There are mix responses regarding the use of social networking sites. 3.3% of female youth are using Social Networking Sites for a minimum of 1-6 months and 13.33% for more than 48 months while 2,22% of male college youth are using Social Networking Sites for a minimum of 1-6 months and 16.66% for more than 48 months. The mean value of attitude of female college youth towards social networking is 81.38 and the mean value of male is 81.40. The value of ‘t’ (0.89) that is less than 0.01 level of significance.. As results indicated that there was no difference in the attitude of males and females towards social networking. However, both the groups (male and female) have average level of attitudes towards social networking, male and female college youth have shown equally positive and favourable attitude towards social networking. Therefore ,college youth have not shown any significant difference in attitude towards social networking sites with respect to gender. The mean value of impact of social networking on female is 22.42and mean value of male is 22.80. The value of ‘t’ (0.69) that is less than 0.01 level of significance. As results indicated that there was no difference in the perceived

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impact of social networking on males and females college youth . However, both the groups (male and female) have average level of impact of social networking, male and female college youth have shown equally positive and favourable impact of social networking on them. Therefore college youth have not shown any significant difference in perceived impact of social networking sites on learning by college youth at undergraduate level. They have seen Social Networking as an impactful activity.