The participants in the study were international students at UBC Vantage college students in the first year study at the Applied Science department. The participation was on a volunteer basis for the students to participate in the study that aimed at finding a correlation between time spent in Canada and the amount of time spent on social media. Domestic students were not included in the study. Out of 183 international students, 175 agreed to participate in the study while eight did not respond to the questionnaire. The fully answered questions were 175 that form the basis of data analysis.
Data collection procedure
Data were collected using survey questionnaires with the participants instructed not to indicate their identity information allowing for high transparency rate and as a respect for their right to privacy. The questionnaire also informed the participants of the voluntary nature of the study and that there was no financial benefit or otherwise for participation in the study. The study questionnaire consisted of 35 questions including screening questions that ensured the participants fit the purpose of the study. Time spent in Canada and types of social media the participant used were the main questions helped collect the data to answer the research question. Questionnaire method was chosen because of its economical, easy to administer to many participants, and ease of analysis. Ratio scale was used to gauge the time spent in Canada with the participants requires indicating the time they have spent in Canada. The nominal scale was utilized to distinguish the different social media platforms the participants used.
Data analysis procedure
The study aimed at finding a correlation between time spent in Canada and social media use by international students. Bivariate analysis was used in analyzing the data collected with the percentages calculated for the participants using the different media channels corresponding to the time spent in Canada. The percentages were interpreted to determine the relationship between time spent in Canada and the social media use. The data will be presented in form of a chart with percentages.
