Use of social media as a pedagogical tool for religious education in higher education: a case of Kyambogo University

Abstract

The study was aimed at exploring the pedagogical use of social media as a tool in Religious Education in higher education using Kyambogo University as a case study. It specifically sought to investigate social media platforms owned by the students and lecturers of Kyambogo University, how these social networking sites could be used as pedagogical tool in Religious Education and to investigate the pedagogical challenges faced in using social media in the teaching and learning of Religious Education. This case study research was guided by the theory of communities of practice as advanced by Lave and Wenger using the underlying principles of collaborative learning, social interaction and collective knowledge construction (Lave & Wenger 1991). The study was conducted on 26 participants including students and lecturers using observation, interview and questionnaires and the findings indicated that students and lecturers were connected to different social media platforms, but commonly used WhatsApp and Facebook to aid the teaching and learning of Religious Education such as ensuring collaboration, social interaction, information gathering and sharing and bridging the gap between students with their respective lecturers. However, effective use of social media as pedagogical tool in Religious Education was limited by lack of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) materials such as smart phones and laptops, unfair government policies on social media, lack of university policy on social media and negative attitude by both students and lecturers and recommendations such as put up clear policies, training of both lecturers and students bout social media sue and putting in place ICT infrastructures were made. It was therefore concluded that social networking sites should be formalized, and used as a pedagogical tool by students and lecturers in Religious Education in order to bridge the gap between students and their lecturers to ensure collaborative learning, social interaction and making learning flexible at anytime and anywhere. xiv C