Abstract:

Discord, a free app originally built for gamers, has become popular beyond the gaming community due to its video and messaging features. By enabling the creation of voice and text channels for sharing educational content through messaging, video calls, and screen sharing, Discord became one of the most widely used platforms for teaching and learning among college and university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the pandemic is well over, a significant number of students argue that they are still using the discord platform, not for playing games, but rather for studying with other classmates. The focus of the study is to determine whether a college student’s academic performance, essentially a student’s grade point average, is affected when using the discord platform and other communication apps as an educational tool for studying. Overall, the results of the study provide evidence that some correlation exists between college students’ communication app use and their academic performance. Based on the analysis of the results, the impact of the discord communication app use on academic GPA is greatest if the students already have a very solid academic background and they study at least 5 days per week.

Keywords:

Discord communication App, social analysis, correlation of determinants, correlation of coefficient, regression coefficient, cognitive dissonance, psychological engagement, f-statistic, academic performance, linear regression, flexplot, word cloud, raincloud plot, ANOVA.