Evaluating the effectiveness of social networking sites usage in the educational support for special education program students at Majmaah University

Abstract

Aim. The aim of this study is to investigate social networks that were most frequently used by the students of the special education program at the faculty of education in Majmaah province, Majmaah University, differences in the educational uses of social networking sites due to gender variable (male - female), the differences in the educational uses of social networking sites due to the academic rate (less than 3 – out of  3 to less than 4.5  out of  4.5 to 5), and the differences in the educational uses of social networking sites according to academic discipline. Materials and methods. 158 male and female students completed and returned the filled inventories. The academic rate includes three categories (less than 3 out of  3 to 4.5 – out of  4.5 to 5), and the specialization includes 4 categories (Autism - Intellectual Disability - Learning Disabilities) from level 6 to 8. The fourth level is special education (without specialization). Results and conclusions. Findings indicated that WhatsApp ranked first in use with an average of 4.53 and a relative weight of 9.22 . YouTube ranked second with a relative weight of 8.86. Wikipedia ranked third with a relative weight of 7.87. The use of Snapchat was in the fourth rank with a relative weight of 7.37 followed by the fifth rank using Twitter with a relative weight of 5.92 and the use of Instagram in the sixth rank with a relative weight of 5.56. (21) with relative weight (3.01) . Facebook ranked (22) with a relative weight of (3.01) and Dropbox Ranked twenty-third and before last of these means. There were statistically significant differences between males and females students in the favor of males on Inventory of Educational Support Areas on "support learning process" ,"supporting students' skills" and composite score . However, there were no statistically significant differences between males and females on the Inventory of Educational Support Areas. There were no differences between the mean score ranks  of academic discipline (without specialization - Intellectual disability - Autism - learning difficulties) . Discussion, conclusion, limitations, theoretical implications and recommendations for further research were included.