SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION FOR LECTURERS WORK ENGAGEMENT IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

The study investigated social media adoption for lecturers‘ work engagement in public universities in Rivers 
State. There were three research questions and three null hypotheses which guided the study. The study 
employed descriptive survey design. Population of the study was all the lecturers in the three public 
universities in Rivers State out of which 300 lecturers were sampled for the study using simple random 
sampling technique. Instrument adopted for gathering data was questionnaire titled ―Social Media Adoption 
and Lecturers Work Engagement Questionnaire‖ (SMALWEQ). The questionnaire was face and content 
validated by three Measurement and Evaluation experts at the University of Port Harcourt. Reliability of the 
instrument was estimated as 0.81 using Cronbach Alpha statistics. Research questions raised were answered 
using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using z-test at 0.05 level of significance. 
The result of the study indicated that the lecturers perceived that social media can promote collaboration but 
requires relevant auxiliary systems to be effective. It was also revealed that social media adoption can make 
communication seamless and promote knowledge sharing in the process of lecturers‘ work engagement but 
challenges such as poor internet services as well as the fact the social media is not usually suitable for all 
kind of activities carried out by the lecturers. It was recommended that lecturers should be trained especially 
in the adoption of social media for their various work engagements in the Universities.