Use of Social Media Platforms and Content Delivery in Higher Education

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 brought about global lockdown and educational managers were confronted with the unenviable choice of closing institutions until the pandemic plummeted or learning new ways of content delivery. The purpose of this article was to investigate use of social media on content delivery in higher education in Kenya: A case of School of Education, University of Nairobi. The objectives were to determine the social media platforms used in content delivery and the individual characteristics which determined their use. The case study research design included a target population of 150 Master of Education (M.Ed.) school-based students and 20 lecturers. The findings indicated that WhatsApp was the most popular platform for both lecturers and students, followed by YouTube and Facebook. Reasons for use of the said social media platforms were convenience, cost-friendliness, timesaving, and access of information to many. It was observed that there were no clear patterns on the types of social media platforms used by gender, age, year of study and teaching experience. The study concludes that while social media has been entrenched in content delivery; exploitation of the same to its full potential remains untapped. The study recommends that the University management reconsider the mobile provider for supply of SIM cards and bundles on basis of internet coverage and reliability of connectivity.