Chapter-1: Introduction

1.1 INTRODUCTION

With the beginning of 21th century we started two things, one is Globalization and the other
is Internationalization. The reason behind these two things is Internet. Internet has brought a
great change in our life. It has changed our habit of passing the daily life. We cannot think a
single day without Internet. To survive in this century everybody must know the primary
knowledge of Internet.

Use of Internet in Bangladesh was started in 1996. Today there have 12 institutions in
Bangladesh which are providing online connection. In the meantime Internet has reached in
every district of Bangladesh. People of all walk of life is availing the facilities of Internet in
their day to day life.

In this world, before the era of Internet there was only a way of acquiring knowledge and that
was educational institutions. But now a day not only the educational institutions but also the
Internet has become a great source of knowledge and information.

The use and impact of Internet has become an important topic in education sector. As Internet
is a great source of information students are spending times on Internet a lot. Internet helps
the students to improve their academic performance. But the students are accessing not for
study purpose only, they also access to Internet for Social networking, Recreation, Income
etc. It cannot be denied that students are benefitted by the use of Internet. But there have
some negative effects of Internet access.

So it becomes necessary to find out the impact of Internet on study. Aim of this study was to
find out the relation between Internet access and academic performance of the students of
Comilla University. And determinant of the performance of the students is CGPA.

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1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

Some specific objectives of the study are:

 Purpose of internet access by the students.

 Internet addiction and effect of this on CGPA of the students.
 Times spend by the students in online activities.
 Finding health problems due to Internet access at a stretch.

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1.3 LITURATURE REVIEW

The use of Internet and the impact on student performance in undergraduate students does not
give clear conclusion and found mixed results in the literature. Some of these have discussed
in this part.

Some studies could not show a realistic impact and some studies show realistic impact of
Internet on student’s performance. Md. Shamimul Islam and Mahmudul Hasan Fouji (2010)
found that, the impact of Internet on the academic performance of the students was very
negligible. The findings also reveal that majority of the students are in the dark about the
potential role of Internet in their academic life.

Md. Shamim Talukder, Md. Jahangir Alam, Md. Ariful Islam Apu (2015) reported that, there
is no significant relation between the use of Internet and the performance of the students but
the Internet addiction (habit based use of internet everyday) affects the performance of the
students negatively.

Peter M. Ogedebe (2012) found positive correlation between Internet usage and academic
achievement and also concluded that ‘The Internet has been shown to influence the academic
performance of students both at the local and international levels’.

Goolsbee and Guryan (2006) reported that, increased uses of computers and internet
connections have had no measurable impact on any measure of student’s achievement.

Kirkpatrick and Cuban (1998) found that the effect of computer and internet use on student
performance is questionable. That is there is no clear conclusion in this research report.

Rajshree Agarwal & A. Edward Day (1998) reported that, there were mixed results on the
effect of Internet enhancements on student attitudes toward economics; graduate students
responded more favorably to economics with the use of the Internet, but no significant
difference in mean attitude changes was apparent for the undergraduate group.

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Tah Babila Mbah (2010) reported that, students of the University of Buea have a positive
attitude towards the use of ICT to support studies and facilitate learning.

From the above studies we understand that there are mixed results regarding the relationship
between the use of Internet in higher education and the students’ performance. But no study
has earlier been conducted at Comilla University Bangladesh on this topic. What would be
the relationship between the accessibility to Internet and the performance of the students of
undergraduate students of Comilla University? Since, both positive and negative relationship
may come out; a study on this topic to identify the exact relationship between these two
variables would provide the exact conclusion. For this study purpose student’s CGPA is the
basis of performance. The higher CGPA indicates higher performance and the lower CGPA
indicates lower performance.

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