Investigation of theses and articles written for the use of social networks in Turkey

The rapid development of technology with the information systems has started the internet age and caused an increase in the use of internet. It is clear that social networking have become more common with the use of internet. Social networks are the platforms where people can communicate with each other in virtual environments via the internet. With social networks, the users can reach the information whenever they want, communicate with the users from different cultures and create their own content. With the common use of internet, the number of social network users has increased. The use of social networks for educational purposes has increased because they enrich the education experiences, supports the students' learning processes and they are used by teachers during teaching and evaluation processes. Because of this, there is an increase in academic studies on the use of social media for educational purposes. In this study, content analysis of the theses and articles about the use of social networks for educational purposes between 2009 and 2017 was performed. With this study, it was aimed to make use of social network in our country to contribute to education. Thus, it was aimed to bring out the mistakes made, to shed light on the deficiencies in the field, to guide the employees, to create awareness for the field and to contribute to the literature in this field. In the study, the answer for the following question was sought: "How are the academical studies about the usage of social networks for educational purposes in terms of content?" Qualitative research method was used in this research. In this way, thesis and articles written between 2009-2017 about the use of social networks in education was examined and commented deeply. This study consists of all the thesis and articles published between 2009-2017. The purposeful sampling method was used to reach the most suitable publications which reflect the subject of the study. The research sampling consists of 124 studies on the use of social networks for educational purposes, 59 postgraduate thesis, 9 doctorate thesis and 56 academical articles. The criteria were determined to collect the data; and the data collection form was created by making use of 3 forms: These are "Religious Education Theses Examination Form" which was developed by Türkan (2015), "Educational Technology Publication Classification Form" developed by Göktaş et al. (2012), "Thesis Examination Form and Abstracts of Findings" developed by Benzer and Erümit (2017), respectively. The validity and reliability studies of the data collection form used in the study were conducted. It was observed that the data collection form had an adequate validity and reliability ratio. The results are expressed by frequency and percentage distributions. Content analysis of theses and articles was limited to 31 criteria. According to the findings of the study, the highest number of academic studies (12 studies) was conducted in 2015, in Hacettepe University. Qualitative research method and experimental model were used mostly. Social networking studies were mostly made through university research.