Abstract

Social Network Sites (SNSs), as a tool for conveying educational messages, have a high position in the agricultural education system. The use of SNSs can affect different aspects of the educational system. Numerous studies have examined the relationship between the use of SNSs and various variables of educational system outputs. This study seeks to identify the factors affecting the educational use of social media and academic performance of agricultural students. The statistical population was 111,528 students of public agricultural colleges across the country in the academic year 2018-2019, of which 400 students were selected from eight universities in the country using Morgan table and multi-stage random sampling method. Data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire using Likert Scale whose morphological validity was confirmed by a number of professors in the field of agricultural extension and Persian literature, and its content validity was confirmed by Average Variance Extracted (AVE between 0.64 and 0.73 for different variables) and reliability was confirmed using sequental theta (Ɵ between 0.85 and 0.92 for different variables). To investigate the effect of variables on students academic performance, t, f and Pearson correlation coefficient were used, respectively, and the findings showed that the most common use of SNSs among students is related to communicating with friends and family. There is a significant difference between the educational use of these networks by male and female students and also between students of different educational levels, but no significant difference was observed between different disciplines. It was also found that the rate of educational use of social networks among students who used these networks for educational purposes, has a positive effect on their academic performance, so it is suggested that educational administrators and planners as well as university professors pay more attention to the inclusion of these media in the curriculum.