The effect of secondary school students' Educational Information Network (EIN) sharings in class groups on academic success in science, educational social network use self-efficiency and opinions about EIN

With the development of communication technologies, social networks have begun to be used frequently. Social networks have reshaped the way people communicate, work and even learning process. The use of social networks as a learning environment importance has increased. Based on this idea, the aim of this study is to investigate the effects of eighth grade students' learning of the "Simple Machines" unit in science lesson using the social network platform in the Education Information Network (EIN) on their academic success, their self-efficacy in using educational social networks and their opinions on those educational social networks. On the other hand, it aims to analyze the content of the students' posts about the subject in EIN social network platform and to determine the effect of social networks on learning products. In addition to this, it aims to reveal students' opinions on using EIN social network in their learning process. In the study, which was planned as a simultaneous/parallel mixed method research, quantitative and qualitative data complemented each other. The quantitative part of the research is based on quasi-experimental design with pretest-post-test control group. The qualitative part is based on case study. The sample in which the quantitative data was collected consists of 38 [Experimental (n=18), Control (n=20)] eighth grade students studying in two different classes of a public school located in Alanya district of Antalya in 2019-2020. The documents examined in the study were collected from all students in the experimental group (n=18), and the interview data were collected from five students in the experimental group. The students who participated in the interview were chosen according to their posts on the EIN social network. The "Simple Machines" unit in the science curriculum was taught to the students in the experimental and control groups with student-centered teaching methods. In addition, a class group was created in the EIN social network for students in the experimental group. In this group, educational content was shared, and students were enabled to share on the subject. Students interacted by discussing the posts related to the subject on the social networking platform and commenting on contents and working together. "Simple Machines Academic Achievement Test", "Educational Social Network Usage Self-Efficacy Scale" and "The Questionnaire to Determine the Students' Opinions about the EIN Website" were used as a quantitative data collection tool in the research. As a qualitative data collection tool, "documents consisting of student shares" and "semi-structured interview form" were used. It was determined how often, for what purpose, what kind of posts the students share, the number of likes and comments on their posts and the content of the comments in documents. With the semi-structured interview, the opinions of the students about sharing in the EIN social network were determined. The quantitative data of the study was analyzed with the SPSS 22 program. Since the data met the assumption of normality, t-tests for unrelated and related samples was used. The data obtained from the documents and interviews were analyzed descriptively. According to the findings of the research, it has been determined that EIN social network support education has a positive effect on students' academic achievement, educational social network use self-efficacy, and their opinions on EIN use. Although there was an increase in the academic achievement scores of the students of both groups, a significant difference was found between the post-test scores of the students in the experimental and control groups in favor of the experimental group. There was a significant difference in favor of the experimental group in the scores obtained from all of the sub-factors of the educational social network usage self-efficacy scale and the questionnaire for determining student opinions about the EIN website. When the posts in EIN social network were examined, it was determined that the students share about the subject in the message, discussion and voting sections, and these are questions, information with visual content, and opinions on the use of EIN. It has been determined that the shares are made in order to present example, explain and reinforce toward subject they have learned. In addition, in the interviews, it has been revealed that the students develop positive opinions on EIN. According to these results, the students state that they learn new information from the posts of their peers on the EIN social networking platform, and that these posts help them to prepare for the less on and reinforce the subject. They found the posts fun, useful and catchy. Based on the results, some suggestions are made to researchers, teachers, teacher educators and those who developed the EIN platform on the basis of EIN social network supported science teaching. Keywords: Educational Information Network, Social network, Self-efficacy towards social network, Multimedia, Simple machines, Mixed method research.