Adapting Social Networking Sites for Scholarly Communication among Postgraduate Students in Kenyan Universities

Abstract

Information overload experienced in the information society calls for improved human information processing. Researchers around the globe are now focusing research on investigating the contributions of multimedia technologies on information processing. This research seeks to bring out the contributions of PowerPoint presentation on content recall, interpersonal interaction and attitudes towards PowerPoint presentation in communication. This research was conducted on the senior one (S1) secondary school students of GSS EPA, in Nyarugenge district, Kigali city province, Rwanda. A sample size of 180 students was selected based on Slovin's formula from a population of 330 senior one students. Through a completely randomized experimental pretest-posttest design, the sample size was randomly assigned to three groups: The group one (G1) is the control group while group two (G2) and group three (G3) experimental groups. Students in group one (G1) were exposed to only talk-and-chalk (less interactive communication strategy) while those in group two (G2) were exposed to talk-and-chalk with PowerPoint presentation and finally students in group three (G3) were exposed only to PowerPoint presentations (a more interactive communication strategy). The researchers used questionnaires, observations and test questions to collect and analyze the data collected in order to establish the relationship between multimedia and student learning attitude.