The relationship between social media-related factors and student collaborative problem-solving achievement

Periodical
Education and Information Technologies
Volume
28
Year
2023
Issue number
11
Page range
14071-14089
Relates to study/studies
PISA 2015

The relationship between social media-related factors and student collaborative problem-solving achievement

An HLM analysis of 37 countries

Abstract

Knowledge and abilities with social media technologies are perceived as critical premises for human development. Familiarity with different types of social media technologies has become pivotal for collaborative learning and successfully solving problems. This study examined the impact of social media technologies, compartmentalized into social media usage and students’ attitudes towards social media usage, on their collaborative problem-solving (CPS) achievement by adopting the sample from the PISA 2015 dataset across 37 countries/regions. A three-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was adopted to identify the significant factors related to CPS achievement. Results indicated that social media usage had a significant impact on CPS achievement and they are varied in terms of different learning contexts, different social media types (e.g., e-mails, social networking sites), and different purposes of social media use (leisure or academic use). Furthermore, students who had a more positive attitude toward social media were more likely to achieve higher CPS performance.