The Effects of Social Networks on Nursing Students’ Academic Achievement and Retention in Learning English

Introduction: The use of modern virtual technologies in the process of teaching-learning is inevitable. One example is the use of virtual social networks in education. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of social networking on nursing students’ academic achievement and retention in learning English. Methods: The pretest-posttest design with a control group was used in this quasi-experimental research. Research population consisted of all of the nursing students (n=70) of Malayer nursing school in 2015-16 academic years, 30 of whom were selected using convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to the control and experimental groups. Independent paired sample test was used to analyze the data. Results: Findings showed that the rates of academic achievement (t=5.14, p=0.001) and retention (t=4.36, p=0.001) of the students who learned English through social networks were higher than the rates of academic achievement (t=0.768, p=0.537) and retention (t=0.747, p= 0.817) of the students who learned the language with traditional methods. Conclusion: Due to the impact of virtual social networks on nursing students’ academic achievement and retention in learning English, it is recommended that this method should be used more in the teaching-learning process of medical education.