Assessing Facebook’s Influence on Research Output Among Lecturers in Federal Universities in South-South Nigeria

Abstract

In universities across the globe, research is a given, hence they are described as research-led intensive institutions. As repositories and knowledge generators, universities epitomize excellence in research, scholarship and education. This is achieved through the exceptional teaching, research and services developed and sustained primarily by the academics.  This research work, therefore, investigated the influence of Facebook on the research output of lecturers in Federal Universities in South-South Nigeria. The research adopted a descriptive survey research design with structured and validated questionnaire used for data collection. The sample size of the study was 576 lecturers, drawn from the six federal universities that make up South-South Nigeria. Simple random and proportionate sampling techniques were used to select the respondents. A research question was formulated and analyzed using mean values. The study’s findings show that Facebook has a significant influence on the lecturers’ research output. This study concludes that Facebook has features, tools and resources for research and other academic purposes, and not a mere tool for networking. Based on the findings, it is recommended that lecturers should get more acquainted with the relevant tools, features and potentials of Facebook and utilize them more in their research works.