The paper presents the results of a study focused on social media as a means of gathering data for conducting research in the field of education, more specifically related to the process of formation. The aim of the study is to answer the following research questions: whether various research methods can be applied within social media; which methods are most suitable for application in an online environment; and what are the advantages and disadvantages of social media as a research tool. The main tasks are to review and analyse existing studies focusing on the extraction of information from social media for conducting research; to outline the advantages and disadvantages of applying research methods within social media; to formulate recommendations for the effective use of such data sources for research purposes in the context of the educational process.

The research method used is a theoretical/systematic analysis of sources. The study is conducted within four main stages:
1) retrieving relevant sources in scholarly publication sharing platforms (ResearchGate; Academia Edu; Google Scholar);
2) primary review of the sources, classification of the relevant ones, and rejection of the irrelevant ones (according to the following criteria: relevance to the topic; accessible text of the publication; correctly conducted and described research; specific approaches for using social media to collect data for the given study indicated; results detailed);
3) secondary review of the selected sources and applying content analysis, differentiating the main research methods utilized within social media;
4) analysis of the obtained data and systematization of the advantages and disadvantages of using social media for conducting research; derivation of recommendations in this regard.

The study's limitations are related to the lack of sufficient research in the field of education, carried out using data from social media. In this context, the current paper could serve as a basis for developing further studies and establishing social media as a setting for integrating different research methods. Furthermore, the results of the present study indicate the potential of social media as a source of data for conducting research in the field of education.

Keywords: Educational research, social media, research methods, educational process, data sources.