Abstract

The COVID-19outbreak affected almost all aspects of human life, bringing education almost to a stand-still in the first and second quarters of 2020. The pandemic tested the sustainability of the world’s health and education institutions, prompting educational institutions to try other means of education that have not been used before.

With the urge for physical distancing, schools were shut down in most countries around the world including Cameroon, between March and June 2020. Online learning became an option and internet networks and social media were quickly diverted for education purposes.

But the speed with which this occurred and the prior-unpreparedness of both learners and teachers to embrace online learning became a major concern to its effectiveness especially in the University of Buea, where the practice was yet to be embraced.

This study aimed at finding out the effectiveness of social media platforms in enhancing online learning during the COVID-19 lockdown period in the University of Buea. A survey was used for the study and a simple random sampling technique was used to select respondents. The sample included 150 students from the University of Buea.

Findings reveal that the principal learning platforms used for online learning were Google classroom (62.0%) and WhatsApp (21.3%). The two major reasons for using these platforms were because they were recommended by school authorities (58.0%) and because the lecturers preferred to using the platforms (18.0%).

The overall conduct of online learning was not very effective in the University of Buea as 55.3% of students who studied online said they did not attain their learning objectives.

The principal recommendation is that authorities of the University of Buea should be more proactive towards seeking alternative learning means other than physical classroom lectures. Internet and distance learning infrastructure should equally be enhanced for online learning to be more effective.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Pandemics and widespread diseases have a way of compelling people to act beyond the normal course of life. According to Anjum (2020), the COVID-19 pandemic compelled learners to stay at home for a long period of time, obstructing the teaching-learning process.

But learning was not obstructed throughout the Coronavirus lockdown period, especially for higher education institutions that resolved to virtual learning. Kumar (2020) highlighted that higher learning institutions responded positively to the constraints Coronavirus posed on education by continuing in research and learning.

Virtual learning was strange to most institutions but they were challenged by circumstances to venture into this new technology-assisted kind of learning. According to Olusola-Fadumiye, Harun & Oke (2021), COVID-19 made technology needed for the development of education and this was being supported with the use of social media tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter.

Thus, social media and networking platforms played a vital role in regulating the obstruction caused by the pandemic on learning: facilitating the exchange of information and helping people to break distant barriers without undermining the social distancing measures prescribed to prevent the spread of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic.

Social media not only proved vital in assisting learning during the global Coronavirus lockdown, but it also helped many higher learning institutions to embrace virtual learning methods for the first time. This enabled many schools to start putting in place alternative learning methods apart from the traditional face-to-face lectures.

Schools were also forced to set up virtual learning infrastructures with the University of Buea installing WIFI devices in all lecture halls by July 2020. According to Beche (2020), the Cameroon government was bent on ensuring pedagogic continuity, with an objective to continue schooling despite the closure of schools and the confinement of learners and teachers.

COVID-19 disrupted both the second term for primary and secondary education levels and the second semester for the tertiary levels of education in Cameroon. As such, continuing the normal functioning of the 2019/2020 school calendar was difficult.

According to DSDEN de l’Oise (2020), as cited by Beche (2020), the pandemic made it difficult for the government of Cameroon to organize public examinations, and so it resolved to strengthen links between school and home through television and radio lectures (for primary and secondary schools) and online platforms (for universities).

The Coronavirus made much news within a few months, obstructing the world’s most powerful economies, education, and health systems and causing a global closure of international travels. Schools also began shutting down in most countries of the world following health experts’ recommendations that this would prevent the spread of the disease.

Equally, the world was nearly at standstill between March and June 2020 due to the strange Coronavirus, COVID-19, which started in Wuhan, China in December 2019, and spread to other parts of the world, greatly altering world economic and social systems.

The world’s most equipped health systems and research laboratories proved insufficient in containing the virus and by April 2020, the WHO declared it a pandemic after it had killed 175,000 people, infecting 2.5 million others mostly in China and Europe (WHO, 2020).

Cameroon announced her first positive case on March 6, 2020, when the second term of the academic was ongoing. The cases rose slowly and steadily and by March 17, the Government shut down all learning institutions and they remained closed until June 1 when they were reopened. Then the country had recorded more than 6,000 cases with 273 deaths.

During this lockdown period, primary and secondary schools remained closed but universities introduced online learning. In the University of Buea where this research focuses, virtual lectures were conducted using principal platforms like Google classroom and WhatsApp.

One thing with online learning unlike face-to-face lectures was that it solely depended on technology and good internet connection. But these features are quite underdeveloped in less technologically advanced countries like Cameroon (Ojong, 2020).

Technology and social media had already been assisting learning before the outbreak of the pandemic, but the point this time is that it was being used to substitute for physical learning and not to accompany it.

This could be quite challenging for both teachers and learners because most of them were embracing this method for the first time. Making a straight transition into virtual learning from the previous method of learning did not go unhindered.

Research has proven that students could get more distracted studying via social media or virtually than when they learn in the classroom. In the case of University of Buea students, some of them attended online lecturers using the same mobile phones with which they answer calls and access Facebook or Instagram. Learning as such could prove more distracting as students’ focus could be interrupted by calls, WhatsApp messages, or Facebook notifications.

According to Nagaraju (2020), virtual learning is itself distracting due to network issues that may arise with its usage, and most learners use virtual learning technologies such as phones and computers to rather distract themselves by engaging in other activities such as online shopping, video game, or chatting.

During the pandemic period, students were confined to study from home which is more casual with potential distractions. This is different from the school environment which fosters competition and pressurizes learners to be more disciplined.

These complications associated with social media learning, therefore, pose questions on the effectiveness of using social media over physical classrooms to learn.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The Coronavirus pandemic has greatly tested the world’s educational systems and provided an opportunity for higher learning institutions to embrace alternative means to learning. Kumar (2020) stated that the pandemic caused an “unprecedented test on education”, with Anjum (2020) opining that the pandemic was a “catalyst” for educational institutions to try other means of education that have not been used before.

The lockdown caused by the pandemic prevented millions of school children from attending physical lectures, but some of them were not hindered from studying throughout the period as they started using social media and messaging platforms to interact with teachers.

Some institutions quickly adapted to the online learning methods due to their prior preparedness to embrace distance learning (Brensaid & Brahimi, 2020). The most commonly used platforms for learning included WhatsApp, Google Classroom, Instagram, and Facebook.

Although the knowledge-sharing process was still ongoing, it couldn’t go unhindered because these social media platforms were not originally built for education but for interaction and message sharing.

Using them for lectures could be more distracting because some learners used the same mobile phones used for other communication purposes to engage in this online learning. Compared to the physical classroom, discipline and competition were absent during the online study period with learners being freer during lecture hours.

The effectiveness of social media use in teaching and learning is, therefore, a topic to be researched. Learning is termed effective if the learning and teaching goals are realized regarding the academic curriculum. This research therefore finds out how social media effectively enhanced learning during the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown periodic.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

1.3.1 General Objective

To find out the effectiveness of social media use in learning during the COVID-19 lockdown period

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

1. To find out the most influential social media users in learning during the Coronavirus pandemic period.
2. To find out how effective social media was adopted for the learning process
3. To understand the challenges faced in using social media and virtual learning platforms for learning during COVID-19