A Correlational Perspective of Social Media-Related Behaviours and Students' Discipline in Public Secondary Schools

Abstract The study examined Social media-related behaviours and students’ discipline in public secondary schools in Kogi State, Nigeria. The purpose of the study was to investigate how often students interact with social media and the effect of this on students’ discipline. Descriptive research of the surrey type was used for the study. The population consisted of all the 55,800 students in all the public secondary schools in Kogi State. The sample for the study consisted of 900 students, 500 teachers and 45 schools. The samples were selected using proportionate sampling and simple random sampling techniques. Two self-designed instruments were used to collect relevant data. They are; Students’ Discipline Questionnaire (SDQ) for teachers and Students’ Social Media-Related Behaviour Questionnaire (SSMRBQ) for students. The validity of the instruments was ascertained by experts in the area of educational management and test and measurement. The reliability coefficient of 0.86 was obtained for SDQ for teachers and 0. 88 for SSMRBQ for students. The data collected were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. All the hypotheses formulated were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that most of the students were engaged in social media. A high percentage of the students (81.2%) in the study area often interact with social media. The study showed that there was a significant relationship between social media-related behaviours and students’ discipline. The study further revealed that there was a significant relationship in the social media-related behaviours and student’s discipline in the rural areas. Based on the findings, it was recommended that school administrators and teachers needed to inform and educate students on the harmful effects and the negative behaviours that students pick up from social media on regular bases