Board 209 - Program Innovations Abstract How Tweet It Is

Abstract

Introduction/Background Today’s learners known as "Millennials" (individuals born after 1982) are used to nearly instantaneous access to information and constant connectivity.1 They prefer learning environments which are interactive and use technology.1,2 Educators, many of whom are digital immigrants, (those who have not grown up with technology) must be creative in their teaching strategies to meet the demands and keep the attention of the digitally native learner. Twitter is a popular social medium and micro-blogging forum with over 500 million users.3,4 Users are able to post 140 character messages (known at "tweets") online using designated hashtags which identify a conversation (feed). In educational contexts Twitter allows for the extension of in-class conversations to continue5 as well as the ability for participants to offer brief comments about their experiences or opinions.6 Twitter and other social media forums are gaining popularity in educational settings as tools to increase participant engagement, attention and interaction.1,4-6 Twitter has been used successfully to engage students; however, there is scant evidence to support its use as a method to capture qualitative data. We sought to explore its usefulness as a qualitative research data collection method as well as its acceptability as a student engagement tool during an interprofessional simulation-based patient safety course. Methods During a weeklong interprofessional simulation-based patient safety course we invited students and faculty to participate in a Twitter conversation. We archived all Tweets which were tagged using the course hashtag #United4ptsafety. Once per day one faculty member "tweeted" a prompting question which focused on either the course experience or patient safety principles. In addition, it was used to provide reminders and other course specifics throughout the week. All participants were free to use Twitter however they wished, but were given guidelines to follow. All tweets needed to be professionally appropriate and not reveal specifics of simulation encounters. Following completion of the course, the archived tweets were downloaded using a commercially available tool called Hootsuite™. The tweets were then coded using content analysis by three faculty to identify themes. In addition, quantitative data were collected to measure the number of tweets, number of followers and to assess the students’ perception of the tool as a way to engage in the course. The first tweets began coming in three days before the start of the course and consisted mostly of comments around using Twitter for the first time, getting ready for the course and being excited to start the course. A total of 289 tweets were generated throughout the course, with an average daily number of 37 tweets. Themes identified included engagement, collaboration, encouragement, communication, teamwork, reflection, seeking clarification, affirmation of learning and just culture principles. Despite favorable outcomes from the point of view of collecting the shared experience of the course, using Twitter was not rated favorably as a good tool for engagement by the majority the students. Faculty ratings, however, were more favorable despite the fact that the faculty did not tweet as much as the students. Results: Conclusion Our study demonstrates that Twitter is a promising tool to generate and collect qualitative data about the experiences of students as they journey through a course. There were, however, mixed reviews from the point of view of the participants. The unfavorable reviews may have stemmed from confusion around the voluntary nature of participating. It was also noted that a large percentage of the students were first time users of Twitter. Perhaps in the future a more formal way to orient new users and introduce best practice guidelines should enhance effectiveness of Twitter as a tool to promote engagement.