The use of social media in EFL learning and teaching in higher education of Afghanistan

Abstract Social media has been widely used in EFL programs in higher education and they play an important role in transforming learning and teaching. This study investigated the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan. Moreover, it explored the preference and the frequency of the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching. A survey questionnaire was administered to gather the data from 170 randomly chosen participants from Takhar University based in Taloqan City, a northeastern city in Afghanistan. The researchers used Statistical Package for Social Sciences to analyze the data. The study found that Facebook and WhatsApp were among the highly preferred social networking sites and they were frequently used in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan. The results of the study showed statistically significant differences in the frequency of the use of social media by the students’ gender, age and class. Female participants used social media more frequently than their male peers and senior and older students used social media more frequently than junior and younger students. The results of the study suggest that higher education leaders and policy-makers should encourage the use of social media and provide more technological facilities to improve students’ achievement and quality of education.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of social media in EFL learning and teachingin higher education of Afghanistan. The study found that Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube were among the highly used social media, and Imo, Twitter and Viber were the least used social media in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan. This study is significant because it will help educational leaders and policy makers to address the limitation of resources by providing more technological facilities and encouraging the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching to improve students' achievement and education quality.

Introduction
Social media has transformed the way in which people communicate and interrelate in society. The use of social media has been increasing among the young generation (Mahmud & Amin, 2017), for example, Facebook is counted as one the most famous social networking sites which is used for different purposes in Afghanistan. Averagely, people use it for 30 minutes every day (Orfan 2021a). The massive use of social media has infiltrated learning and teaching in higher education. Many students and lecturers use social media to share their messages and communicate with each other. Social media has played a significant role in advancing communication and interaction among students and lecturers. Students of the twenty-first century have been experiencing the integration of technology and social media in their learning . They have grown into a generation who are expected to use different information communication technologies in their learning (Aragon, 2007). Social media helps students to interact with their lecturers, classmates and get new information about their courses (Pempek et al., 2009). Of the hundreds of social media available around the world, social networking sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter, Viber, YouTube and Wikis are among the widely used social media in communication between students and lecturers. Students use them to communicate with their classmates and academic staff or to read the information they need. Lecturers use social media to share the information of their courses and teaching materials with their students.
Long lasted war and political instabilities negatively impacted higher education in Afghanistan Noori et al., 2020;Orfan, 2021b;Taheryar, 2017). For example, during the regime of the Taliban, many schools and universities were closed and war destroyed infrastructure (Noori, 2021a). After the new government was established in 2001, universities and schools reopened and educational institutions started the integration of technology in learning and teaching (Babury & Hayward, 2014). Unfortunately, the new government could not lead the country appropriately and conflicts were rising day by day. As a result, most of the government's budget was spent on security affairs and less attention was paid to education in the country (Fukuyama, 2006). Other countries spend a huge amount of money to transform their education system and provide more technological facilities to the educational institutions (Sife et al., 2007). However, in the Afghan context, the resources and technological facilities are limited to support students' learning. For instance, there are no computers and projectors provided by the government to the classrooms and the students do not have access to the Internet at the universities. Even in most faculties, lecturers have problems accessing a speedy Internet. In addition, libraries are not equipped with modern technologies, which hinder the use of ICT in learning and teaching (Khalid, 2020).
Due to lack of Internet facilities at the universities, some of the students and lecturers were utilizing the Internet of mobile tele-communication companies to connect with each other. A large number of lecturers used WhatsApp and Facebook in their personal interactions, but few of them used for class communication. After the spread of the COVID-19 in early 2020, the Afghan government closed schools and universities and asked the educational institutions to conduct online classes (Orfan). Since then, the use and integration of technology in learning and teaching became more popular and the Ministry of Higher Education introduced a learning management system (HELMS). Unfortunately, this system was not as effective as expected since some of the students were living in rural areas where the Internet connection was poor. Therefore, some of the lecturers started using other platforms (e.g., Zoom, google classroom, and WhatsApp to share teaching materials with the students, which enhanced the usage of social media in learning and teaching (Noori, 2021a).
Many studies have examined the use of social media in learning and teaching. Zgheib and Dabbagh (2013) studied the perception of students and lecturers about the use of social media in university learning and teaching and found that lecturers and students perceived social media as a learning tool to trigger students to new technology and enhance their learning. Haidari et al. (2020) explored the usage of social media and Wikis in the teaching of writing and found that they helped students overcoming different problems in their writing and generic skills. The study also revealed that the usage of social media had a good impact on learners' performance because they improved their language skills, teamwork, collaborative learning, and critical thinking. Salih and Elsaid (2018) found that students did not only use social media to communicate, but they also used them to gain knowledge and fulfill their educational needs. Rodriguez (2011) explored the use of social media in university learning and teaching and found that the lecturers incorporated social media in their instruction to enhance students' engagement and motivation. Li (2017) stated that social media is used by students to share information and get learning materials. The respondents used social media to get updates about their class assignments and projects. Esteve et al. (2017) indicated that social media was widely used in teaching and their usage helped instructors to stay informed and learn about the students' performance. Moghavvemi et al. (2018) explored the usage of social networking sites as a complementary learning tool in learning and teaching and examined YouTube as a case in Malaysian higher education. The study found that YouTube was a useful learning tool to improve students' motivation and learning performance. The study also revealed that the students used YouTube to find information and entertain in the learning environment. Mwalimu et al. (2018) studied the use of social media at the University of Zambia and declared that social media was more frequently used by younger lecturers for educational purposes. The study also emphasized that Facebook and YouTube were among the highly preferred social media used by lecturers and students. Tantarangsee et al. (2017) found out the usage of social media in university learning and teaching in Thailand and found that YouTube was the most commonly used social media. However, they added that Facebook was the least repeatedly used social media in university teaching and learning.
Social media like Facebook are massively used by students in daily communications (Prescott et al., 2013). Donlan (2014) examined the usage of Facebook in learning and teaching in the United Kingdom and found that the students used Facebook for communication and the assessment of their group work. Thalluri and Penman (2015) believed that the use of Facebook was beneficial to provide an innovative learning environment and it fostered students' interaction in Australian higher education. Van et al. (2020) reported that social networking sites were used to improve teaching and motivate the students. The study recounted that Facebook and Twitter were among the highly used social networking sites in the classrooms. Alabdulkareem (2015) examined the usage and the impact of social networking sites in learning and teaching in Saudi Arabia and found that social networking sites were used to enhance students' learning outcomes and socialization. The study also revealed that almost all the teachers and students widely used WhatsApp in their daily communication. Xodabande (2017) investigated the effectiveness of using social networking sites among Iranian EFL learners. The researcher divided the respondents into experimental and control groups. He compared the performance of the students using t-test and found that the pronunciation of the participants in the experimental group improved more than those of the control group. The study also revealed that the usage of social networking sites was effective in language learning and teaching. For example, Telegram significantly contributed to improve the participants' pronunciation performance. Ansari and Khan (2020) concluded that social media was used for collaborative learning to advance communication and knowledge sharing.
The use of technology has been rapidly growing in Afghanistan and they have become popular among university students and lecturers (Mushtaq & Benraghda, 2018). The rationale behind the usage of social networking sites is to provide a platform for educational purposes and fulfill the needs of the Y generation. In addition to traditional classes and lectures, online discussions and communicational tools have become the potential platforms to enhance students' learning and engagement Rasiah, 2014). Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 and paradigm shifts in higher education, different online platforms became popular and the usage of social networking sites dramatically increased in learning and teaching in Afghanistan (Naim & Sandaran, 2020). This study will be significant because most of the studies were conducted in developed and developing countries where there are better infrastructure and facilities, though, Afghanistan has been facing decades of war and instabilities which resulted in the scarcity of resources and limitation of technological facilities. Unfortunately, no study was found to focus on the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan. Therefore, this research will address the gap by investigating the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching and it offers insights into the frequency and the preference of the usage of social media in EFL learning and teaching in higher education.

Purpose of study
This study explores the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan which addresses the below research questions.
(1) Which of the social media is more preferred in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan?
(2) What is the usage of social media in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan?
(3) What is the frequency of the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan?

Design
The researcher conducted the study quantitatively and used a survey questionnaire in gathering the data. Creswell (2012) states that the quantitative research design is suitable when the researchers collect numerical data and report their statistical findings. In this study, the researchers have used SPSS in analyzing the data and reported their statistical findings.

Participants
The targeted population was 250 undergraduate students in the English Department of Takhar University. The researchers can select samples from the targeted population in their studies (Noori, 2021b). Based on the sampling structure introduced by Krejcie and Morgan (1970) for accurate selection of sample from the desired population, the researchers chose the sample of the study. They used Ms. Excel and the random formula to select 170 respondents as the research sample. The majority (72%) of the respondents were male, while (28%) of them were female students. Around 24% of them aged between 18-22, and 76% of them aged 23 and above. About 21% of them were the first year, and 27% of them were second-year students. Meanwhile, 37% of them were juniors and only 14% of them were seniors. The researchers purposefully selected the students from the English Department of Takhar University to explore their experiences of the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching. They have chosen a bigger sample to reduce error of sampling.

Instrument
The researchers thoroughly reviewed the literature and conducted focus group interviews to develop the questionnaire. They asked 2 groups of six students to generate items of the research instrument. The groups listed and discussed the use of social media and the frequency of their usage in teaching and learning. The authors developed 10 questionnaire items from the output of the discussion. They also adapted 16 items from the literature (Allam & Elyas, 2016;Chawinga, 2017;Hussain, 2012). A survey questionnaire is a good approach for providing efficient, quick, and effective data collection (Zikmund & Babin, 2010). The questionnaire had three key parts. The first part asked about the personal background of the participants and their preference for using different types of social media. The second section contained 16 items aimed to seek students' experiences about the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching. The final part contained 10 items that aimed to inquire about the frequency of the usage of social media in EFL learning and teaching. The respondents needed to select items which contained a five-point Likert Scale (1 = Strongly-Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Undecided; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree), 1 = always; 2 = often; 3 = sometimes; 4 = seldom; 5 = never).

Validity
Three of my colleagues in Takhar University checked and proofread the questionnaire and the suggested changes were made based on their comments. The researchers translated the questionnaire into the Dari language because English is learnt as a foreign language in Afghanistan , and the first-year students were not fluent in English. After the translation of the questionnaire, it was given to 2 experts in the Department of Dari Language and Literature and was modified based on their feedback.

Reliability
Azevedo and Shane (2019) believed that the pilot study is one of the most essential stages in the research process that helps researchers to improve the basis of their research projects. According to Doody and Doody (2015), a pilot study assists the researchers to improve data collection plans and enhance the content validity of their questionnaire. To ensure reliability, a pilot study was carried out and 30 students were requested to complete the survey questions. To determine the reliability of the study, a reliability test was carried out. The researchers analyzed the data of the pilot study with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Findings revealed that each category of the questionnaire had an acceptable value (Alpha > 0.80. Table 1 shows that all the categories had a Cronbach's Alpha value (0.918) which indicates good reliability of the instrument.

Procedure
The researchers designed and prepared the questionnaire in Ms. Word file. Then they asked the dean of the faculty of language and literature to cooperate with the data collection of the research. After his agreement was taken, the researchers organized 4 sessions to meet with the students and collect the data. Copies of the consent form and questionnaire were distributed to the participants and they were asked to return the papers back to the department. It took 2 months to collect the data (October-November 2020). The researchers collected the physical copies of the questionnaire from the English department and entered the data in Ms. Excel.

Analysis
The data were imported to SPSS for analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistical tests were carried out to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics were utilized to find the mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage. Inferential statistical tests (i.e., t-test and analysis of variance) were carried out to find the variances in the frequency of use of social media by students' demographic variables: gender, age, and class.

The preference of using of social media in EFL learning and teaching
The researchers studied the preference of using different types of social media in EFL learning and teaching. Figure 1 shows that several types of social media were used in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan. As Figure 1 designates that Facebook and WhatsApp were the highly preferred and Twitter was the least preferred social networking sites used in EFL learning and teaching. The results indicate that there was a difference in the preference of using different types of social media in EFL learning and teaching.

Students' experiences of the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching
Students' perception about the usage of social media in teaching and learning was divided into two sub-categories.

The usage of social media in EFL learning
The first 11 items aimed to seek students' opinion about the use of social media in EFL learning. Table 2 shows that almost all the students agreed with each statement which showed that the students usually used social media in their learning. The mean comparison of Tables 3 and 2 shows that social media were often used in learning rather than teaching.

Usage of social media in EFL teaching
The next 5 items aimed to seek students' opinions about the usage of social media in EFL teaching. The results (Table 3.) indicate that almost all the students had a positive response to each statement which showed the high usage of social media in EFL teaching.

The frequency of usage of social media
The last 10 items aimed to seek students' experiences about the frequency of usage of social media in EFL learning and teaching. The results (Table 4) show that almost all the respondents marked the statements as always, often and sometimes which show their positive perception about the usage of social media in EFL learning and teaching. Therefore, it is indicated that social media was frequently used in EFL learning and teaching in Afghanistan.

Analysis by the students' demographic background
The researchers carried out inferential statistical analysis to determine the variances in the frequency of usage of social media in EFL learning and teaching by students' demographic information: gender, age, and class. The findings (Table 5) showed that the significance value of all variables is 0.01 and is less than 0.05. Therefore, significant differences were found in the Preference of using social media Figure 1. The preference of using social media in EFL learning and teaching.
frequency of the usage of social media in ELF learning and teaching by the students' demographic variables: gender, age, and class.

Discussion
This study investigated the use of social media in EFL learning and teaching in Higher Education in Afghanistan. It also examined the preference and frequency of the usage of social media in EFL learning and teaching. The results showed that Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube were among the highly preferred social networking sites in EFL learning and teaching. This result is consistent with the finding of earlier research conducted by Mwalimu et al. (2018) and Alabdulkareem (2015) who found that WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube were massively used in teaching and learning. However, it contradicts the study of Tantarangsee et al. (2017) who reported that Facebook was one of the least frequently used social networking sites in EFL learning and teaching. Moreover, the findings showed that Twitter, Viber, and Imo were among the least used social media in EFL learning and teaching. This is contrary to the research of Van et al. (2020) and Xodabande () who found that Twitter was among the highly used social networking sites in EFL learning and teaching in Iran.
Social media has played an important role in transforming learning and teaching and were widely used for different purposes. The findings displayed that social media was massively used by lecturers in EFL teaching. They also exposed that social media was used by students and lecturers to communicate with each other, and the lecturers had the skills to use social media in their teaching. The majority of the respondents believed that social media was effective for university teaching and they saved time. This finding is aligned with the study of Salih and Elsaid (2018) who reported that social media was effective in EFL teaching and learning. However, around 75% of the participants believed that the overuse of social media caused eye problems for both lecturers and students. This finding supports the study by Haand and Shuwang (2020) who found that the overuse of social media caused health problems for both lecturers and students.
The study found that social media has been widely used for learning among Afghan university EFL students. Most of the students stated that social media helped them to learn the update information of their courses and easily get materials and academic resources. They also believed that the use of social media has improved their writing, reading, thinking skills and they were useful for their learning. In addition, the results exposed that social media helped the students to learn the avenue and time changes of their classes and facilitate learning for them at any time and place. It is in line with the study of Li (2017) who found that the students used social media to share information and get the learning materials. Furthermore, the participants of the study used social media to get information about the changes in their programs and courses.
The study also revealed that social media was frequently used in EFL teaching and learning activities. The majority of the respondents believed that their lecturers used social media in their teaching and students used them to access academic resources, view and download class notes and communicate with their classmates and lecturers. In addition, most of them stated that they used social media to improve their skills and knowledge. It confirms the research by Salih and Elsaid (2018) and Rodriguez (2011) who found that social media was helpful to find resources and improve students' skills.
Additionally, the study found that there were statistically significant differences in the frequency of the use of social media by the participants' demographic variables: gender, age and class. The results indicated that female students were more frequently using social media than their male peers. Moreover, older students were more frequently using social media than their younger classmates. In addition, juniors and seniors were more repetitively using social media than the first and second year students.

Conclusion
Social media has been widely used among lecturers and students in Afghanistan universities and no study was carried out to explore the usage of social media in EFL learning and teaching so far. Therefore, this research fills the gap by investigating the use of media in EFL teaching and learning, it also explored the frequency and preference of the usage of social media in EF learning and teaching. The study found that social media was frequently used in EFL leaning and teaching activities. Among several types of social networking sites, Facebook and WhatsApp were the highly preferred applications and Twitter and Viber were the least preferred applications used in EFL teaching and learning in Afghanistan higher education. The study also found that the vast majority of the students and lecturers used different kinds of social media in the university teaching and learning activities and social media was used for different purposes such as, communication, reading and downloading study materials, improving knowledge and skills and updating the changes about students' class avenues and time.
This study has some practical and theoretical implications. Since the resources and technological facilities are limited in Afghanistan, higher education leaders should make a policy and provide more facilities to the universities and encourage the use of social media in learning and teaching to boost students' achievement and learning outcomes. The study has two limitations at hand. Time was limited and the finding of the research cannot be generalized to all EFL programs in higher education institutions in the country. Future researchers may go with a larger sample and mixed method studies to target both public and private university students and lecturers. The next studies may focus on the importance and challenges of using social media in EFL learning and teaching.