Abstract:

The growing use that students make of digital social networks on mobile devices in the world, opens up a vast possibility of their use in the school context. The Facebook, due to its characteristics, has been used as a platform to support the teaching and learning process in several regions of the world, however, its impact on academic performance is not consensual. It is believed that the use of Facebook in a context of insufficient academic management platforms, may be a useful tool for increasing students' academic performance. Thus, this study aims to analyze the impact of using Facebook on academic performance in the discipline of Geography. The research had a quasi-experimental design, in which 55 undergraduate students in Teaching of Geography from the Higher Institute of Educational Sciences of Huíla - ISCED (Angola) participated, divided into an experimental group (n = 32) and a control group (n = 23) . The results revealed that the average in the final grade in the discipline was significantly higher in the experimental group, as well as the average obtained in the classification in a knowledge assessment test. Based on this, it is concluded that the use of Facebook tools to support the teaching and learning process had a significant positive effect on students' academic performance, with this effect having increased over time.

Keywords:

Social networks, Facebook, Academic Performance, Geography.