Teachers Perceptions on the Negatives and Potential Positives of Social Media on Students Mathematical Learning

This research of quantitative approach through its descriptive design examined the negatives of the frequent usage of social media, like WhatsApp and Facebook, on students� critical thinking, problem solving processes and mathematics learning in the secondary level. In addition, this research explored the potential positives of social media on students� learning according to teachers� perceptions and whether there are any differences between their perceptions based on their gender. The researchers adopted the descriptive design to explore the negatives and potential positives of social media on students� mathematical learning. For their study, the researchers were only interested in reflecting teachers� perceptions about the negatives and potential positives of social media, and if they think in the same way. The sample of the study was formed of 350 math teachers, 186 males and 164 females. The researchers employed a 5-point likert scale online survey questionnaire as the instrument. The researchers were able to reach these teachers all across Lebanon through the survey�s link to determine their perceptions about social media according to their answers. For statistics, the researchers used the bar diagram to represent the gender of the math teachers, the descriptive statistics (the mode) and the Chi-Square Test for analysis. Results revealed that the majority of math teachers believe that social media is wasting students� time allocated for their study and has decremented their mathematical learning ability in different aspects. In addition, results also showed that math teachers, males and females, believe that students can exchange mathematical information through social media, which in turn provides them with additional learning resources and creates awareness to improve their mathematical learning. However, not so many teachers believe that social media can motivate students, increase their mathematical knowledge and improve their cognitive communication skills and confidence in math exams. The researchers recommended examining the effects of the frequent usage of social media in important aspects that concern students like their performance, through their grades and competencies, behavior and anxiety of math exams. In addition, the researchers called for more experiments related to the potential positives of social media in education in order to provide teachers with modern activities that can reinforce and ease students� mathematical learning.