The Opinions of School Administrators about Social Media

The purpose of this study is to identify the views of school administrators about social media. I n accordance with phenomenological research design, one of qualitative research methods, the data was collected with semi-structured interview questions developed by the researcher under the control of experts. The work group of the study was composed of 26 school administrators. In the determination of the work group of the study the criterion sampling was used. Recording the interviews was used to collect the datum and content analysis method is used to analyse the datum. In the findings of the study, school administrators stated both positive and negative opinions about the effects of social media on students’ behaviours. While school administrators stated that “sharing positive things” and students’ “improving themselves” as important positive behaviours, students’ “uttering profane language” and “arousing curiosity for the bad” were stated as negative behaviours. As the effects of social media to students’ academic success, it was found that “reaching the information” was stated as an important positive effect, “too much timewasting” was stated as a negative effect. “Enlightenment” and “sourcing” were stated as the most important support of social media to the students’ education by the administrators. “Causing timewasting” and “causing addiction” were stated as the most important obstructers of social media to students’ education. Unconscious use of social media causes both addiction and acquiring negative behaviours. The social media whose most important feature is to provide communication, has also some important educational features, as reaching the information easily and finding educational sources. Improving a supervision system, training students about the importance of time, researching about the educational use of social media, developing new techniques and methods could be effective in getting rid of the negative sides caused by social media. Some of the participants suggest a social media course in schools to teach conscious use of social media and how to protect themselves from any danger could be caused by the social media use