PRINCIPALS STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING SOCIAL MEDIA MISUSE FOR EFFECTIVE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION IN ANAMBRA STATE
The study investigated principals’ strategies for managing social media misuse for effective school administration in Anambra State. Four research questions and hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey design was adopted in the study. Target population of the study was 259 principals in the six education zones in Anambra State while 157 principals were sampled for the study using convenience sampling technique. Instrument used for data gathering was a 20-item questionnaire titled “Strategies for Managing Social Media Misuse for Effective School Administration Questionnaire” (SMSMMESAQ) and this was face and content validated by two experts at Tansian University, Anambra State. The reliability of the instrument was 0.81 using Cronbach alpha statistics. There were 157 copies of questionnaire administered while 148 copies representing 94.3% were retrieved. 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 showed that social media was majorly used for evaluation and communication purposes to a high extent. The study showed that cases of misuse included the use of the platform for entertainment and spreading of fake information. It was revealed that the consequences of the misuse of social media in the school included wastage of educational resources and lack of integrity of circulated information while building of an institutional social media platform and enforcement of social media policies in the school were revealed as strategies for curbing social media misuse. It was recommended based on the finding that school personnel should be trained on safe use of social media sites for effective school administration.
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