Brown 1

Austin Brown

SBS 362

5 May 2016

Potential Capstone Proposal

What role does social media play in how todays college students study? How do

CSUMB students spend their study time? These are the questions I will be looking into for my

potential Capstone project. I am interested in researching how the general public of CSUMB

spends their time, when they should be studying or when they say they are studying. I hope to be

able to find some useful information for not only myself but also for the people that I am

interviewing or surveying.

The issue at hand is the fact that students today have far more distractions than any other

generation has had to deal with. Maybe not more in quantity, but far more in rapid availability.

Students today have cell phones and the internet all within reach of their fingertips. There are

unlimited webpages for people to want to visit or explore when they should be on one specific

one that relates to their academic world.

An in-depth citation of 15 researched sources can be found in my NVivo project for SBS

362. Over the course of this class we have learned how to code, which is basically assisted

annotation, articles in qualitative data software. This software, NVivo, has been enormously

helpful in keeping track of my sources and my annotations of these sources. Attached I will have

a bibliography with five of the sources I have used. In order to get a better understanding of what

they are and how I will use them, I will refer back to my NVivo for my capstone class. And I just

may end up using that software to help compile and simplify my capstone work.
 Brown 2

Now, what methods will I use to collect data for this project? Well I will start off by

sending out a mass survey to a large and diverse group of people. I will be asking them about

how they spend their time when they are studying. I want it to be anonymous so that way

everyone answers honestly. It will be a good way to get a large number of participants and

results. To get a more qualitative look at why people study the way they do, I will be conducting

a few interviews. Somewhere between 10 and 15. This will give me a deeper look into why

people get distracted like they do. And finally, I will continue to look at past studies people have

done on this topic. Hopefully there is enough that I will be able to get some good information

from them.

Timeline:

May 2016 Turn in this proposal and get feedback

August 2016 Start my first capstone class and continue to get feedback and advice from

my advisor.
September 2016 February 2017 Collect findings through surveys, interviews,

literature review, and other research.

February 2017 April 2017 Analyze collected information and turn it into a written

project. I will use this time to write up my findings, compose an analysis of it, and also

create graphs and other visuals to represent my data.

May 2017 Conclude everything and present my findings at the Capstone Fair.

Hopefully get a passing grade and graduate college! Woo!

Works Cited
 Brown 3

Junco, Reynol. "Too Much Face and Not Enough Books: The Relationship between Multiple
Indices of Facebook Use and Academic Performance." Computers in Human Behavior
28.1 (2012): 187-98. Science Direct. Web. 16 May 2016.
Paul, Jomon Aliyas, Hope M Baker, and Justin Daniel Cochran. "Effect of Online Social
Networking on Student Academic Performance." Computers in Human Behavior, 28.6
(2012): 2117-2127.
Skiera, Bernd, Oliver Hinz, and Martin Spann. "Social Media and Academic Performance: Does
the Intensity of Facebook Activity Relate to Good Grades?." Schmalenbach Business
Review : ZFBF, 67.1 (2015): 54.
Tsai, Hsien-Chang, and Shih-Hsiung Liu. "Relationships Between Time-management Skills,
Facebook Interpersonal Skills and Academic Achievement Among Junior High School
Students." Social Psychology of Education, 18.3 (2015): 503-516.
Wang, Yinying. "Social Media in Schools: A Treasure Trove or Hot Potato?." Journal of Cases in
Educational Leadership, 16.1 (2013): 56-64.