International Journal of Sub-Saharan African Research (IJSSAR)

Background: The proliferation of social media technologies has significantly reshaped communication patterns among undergraduate students of Universities in Nigeria. This had given rise to the use of online forum. The online forum is a created application such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and other digital network which serves as an interactive space where undergraduate students exchange ideas, share academic materials, and maintain social connections. While online forum holds the potential to enhance collaborative learning and academic engagement, their unregulated and often informal nature has raised concerns about their impact on students’ academic performance. In many cases, these forums are dominated by non-academic discussions, distractions, and excessive time consumption, which may detract from meaningful learning activities. Though studies exist in this area, but there remains a gap in knowledge on the specific ways in which online forum participation influences the academic performance of undergraduates in a digitally growing institution like Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria.
Objective: This study examined the impact of online forum on the academic performance of undergraduate students of Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki.
Method: The study adopted in this study was descriptive survey design. The population was made up of 3,689 undergraduate students of Ebonyi State University Abakaliki and sample size of 400 was gotten through Taro Yamane’s sampling formula. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the participants or respondents. Based on the sample size, questionnaire was used as instrument of data collection.
Result: Findings show that: majority of the undergraduates belong to and make use of one form of online forum or the other, students online forums exist for other reasons than for academics and there is poor attitude/performance to learning among the undergraduate students in Ebonyi State University.
Conclusion: This study concludes that online forum via social media negatively affects the academic performance of the undergraduate students, thereby causing negligence and poor performance in academic activities.
Unique Contribution: This study will be useful to the undergraduate students and lecturers of Ebonyi State University by exposing online forums as influencer of poor academic performance of the undergraduates and as well guide them on how to overcome it.
Key Recommendation: The Ebonyi State University authority should educate and sensitize students on the use of online forum for academics by providing online regulatory measures that will checkmate online activities of all students, to encourage them on online academic purposes such as assessing materials for their studies online. The students should be followed up on the use of online forums through formulated rules and regulations in the university by setting up online checking mechanism via an app or platform against the ills of online forums in the University.