Statement of the Problem
The purpose of our study is to determine what correlation, if any, exists between the amount of time spent on facebook and student’s G.P.A. We are interested in this particular study because of how often social networking sites are used today. We both believe that the more time a student spends on Facebook the greater effect it has on their G.P.A. and with this study we can determine if we are correct in our assumption or not. We are trying to show that students today might have a harder time maintaining good grades because of these revolutionary advances in technology.
Abstract: We chose to do our study to see if there was a correlation between the amount of time spent on Facebook with students G.P.A. We were interested in this topic because of how often social networking sites are used in our everyday lives. For our population we decided to use the entire student body at North Olmsted High School, including all grades (Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors). We then used a Minitab Output to generate a random sample of 75 students to participate in our study. Next, we created a survey containing two questions asking the students the average amount of time they spend on Facebook daily, and their average G.P.A. for third quarter.
After choosing our study and sampling technique, we did background research on our topic to see if anybody else has conducted a study like ours. We ended up finding many different websites with information on a study similar to ours, but most all of the websites contained information about the study conducted by Dr. Reynol Junco. In his study he has concluded that the number of times a student checks their facebook was not strongly related to their G.P.A. He found “Facebook use in and of itself is not detrimental to academic outcomes, it depends on how it is used. Using facebook for socializing is negatively related to G.P.A. while using Facebook for collecting and sharing information is positively related.”
After receiving our surveys back, there ended up being a response bias because we only got 60 surveys returned out of the 75 we sent out. We then put our data into Minitab and used a Chi-Square test to draw a conclusion. At first the Chi-Sqaure test was invalid because we had mutiple categories that had an expected cell count less than five. So in order to validate our results we had to combine a few of our categories, which ending up leaving us with only two out of the four categories we started off with. After grouping our categories to make a valid conclusion we ended up recieving a Chi-Squared value of 8.816 and a p-value of .003. So in result we rejected our null hypothesis at any reasonable level of significance because our p-value of 0.003 is less than Alpha. Therefore, we have sufficent evidence to say that the amount of time spent on Facebook is associated with a student's G.P.A.