The Potentials of Whatsapp Group in Promoting Learning, Social Interaction and Democracy among Undergraduate Students in University of Maiduguri, Borno State Nigeria

Abstract

The Whatsapp platform created in the year 2009 is a mobile messaging app which allows the users to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. It also makes communication and the distribution of multimedia messaging more easily and faster using internet connectivity. This study therefore investigated the potentials of Whatsapp group in promoting learning, social interaction and democracy among undergraduate studentsin University of Maiduguri, Borno State Nigeria. The study had three objectives and three corresponding research questions. Qualitative design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of all the four Whatsapp groups formed for the undergraduate levels of adult education programme. Out of these four Whatsapp groups, two were selected for the study. The two groups selected for the study were those of 300 and 400 levels in the 2017/2018 academic session. The population of the group members at 300 level were 97 while those at 400 level were 103. This gave a total population of 200. Three posts consisting of messages covering information text and supportive images, audio, video and document files posted to the group platform made by three male students and female students in each of the levels in line with the research objectives raised for this study were chosen by expert views for analysis. The reliability of the posts were determined cross checking with the facts on ground to ensure that only consistent data is used for the analysis. Analysis in this study was done using narratives only. The result of the study shows that Whatsapp groups utilized by undergraduate adult education students in 2017/2018 academic session for the 300 and 400 level students has greatly promoted their learning, social interaction and practice of democracy. The study concluded that the Whatsapp group is a very important platform for undergraduate adult education students. It therefore recommends amongst others, that Class Representatives should partner and add their various course Lecturers to their groups so that they could help them clarify certain concepts or issues they did not understand in the classroom.