The Impact of Internet on the Youth Leadership

Abstract

In the conditions of digitalization of economy, acceleration of information technologies, automation of industrial processes Internet serves as one of the most powerful and effective tool for successful business activity. The active introduction of communication, information and other services form the prerequisites for the society transition from traditional ways of development to innovations, which are based on the active use of information technologies. One of the areas undergoing digital transformation is the academic life. The use of the Internet for educational purposes is seen as the key to facilitating the learning process, the formation of general and special competences of graduates, their ability to self-discipline, responsibility, autonomy and leadership. The main aim of the research is to analyze the role of information technologies in the formation of leadership qualities of young people, to study the relationship between the students’ academic performance and their leadership qualities. The analysis of literary sources and approaches to solving the issue of leadership among the young generation shows that the problem of increasing the academic performance of students in Bangladesh public and private universities through the prism of developing their leadership qualities is of great relevance. The main hypothesis of the work is the connection between the level of academic performance of a student and his/her leadership qualities. The subject of study is students of higher education institutions in Bangladesh. Methodical tools of the study were methods of data analysis and synthesis, regression method, Pearson chi-square test, methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Analyses were done using data collected from 609 students of several departments of International University of Business Agriculture and Technology (IUBAT), a private university located in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The statistical association between academic performance and several explanatory variables was checked. Variables like age, depression, part-time job, internet for movies and/or music, relationship status and hours spend (daily) on the internet for studying were found to impact the academic performance level significantly. The study empirically confirms and theoretically proves that having leadership qualities is one of the key determinants of a student’s success, his/her ability to quickly acquire new knowledge and skills. The existence of significant influence of leadership on the level of graduates’ employment and the success of their career are substantiated. The findings of this study would help students, teachers and corresponding authority of the institution to comprehend the factors impacting the academic performance of the students and take further actions accordingly.