Availability and Utilization of Social Media Resources in Learning of Sciences in Kaduna State College of Education Gidan Waya, Kaduna State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT: A social network is an online community that brings people of different works of life withcommon interest, opinions, activities and experiences together by sharing their views, photos, videos andevents.Social media enhance communication and interaction among students and between teachers and students.The main feature of social media is that they empower the end user to access, create, disseminate and shareinformation easily in a user-friendly, open environment. This study investigated the Level of Social MediaUtilization in learning of Sciences in Kaduna State College of Education GidanWaya, Kaduna State, Nigeria.The descriptive survey design was adopted for this study as the research design. Three hundred and Eighty-one(381) Nigeria Certificate of Education (N.C.E) Science Students‟ of Kaduna State College of EducationGidanWaya were randomly selected for the study. Researchers designed questionnaire titled “Utilization ofSocial Media Questionnaire” (USMQ) with Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficients of 0.78 was used to collectdata for the study. Analysis of data was carried out using frequency, percentage, mean, t-test and regressionstatistics which were tested at 0.05 alpha level of significant. Findings revealed that social media utilization hadsignificant influence on students‟ performances in sciences. There was no significant difference in theperformance of male and female students on the basis of gender. Based on these findings, it was recommendedthat Teachers should monitor students use of social media to make sure documents posted on social media areaccurate, transparent, honest, respectful and sensitive about the content they create or share to ensure academicfreedom and free speech are fully respected.Federal Ministry of Education should also ensure that institutions oflearning have proper social media policies in placedealing with students who violate such polices.

Keywords: Social Media, Utilization, Gender, Science, College of EducationGidanWaya Kaduna