The new face of learning: Social media innovating medical education

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The evolution of social media has not only altered the interaction mode but also affected the learning and teaching opportunities. Medical students worldwide are connected and oriented in social networking. Social media has also emerged as a new developing tool in medical education. The use of Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp has provided students a platform for interactive education, collaboration communication, and socializing.OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to evaluate student's satisfaction on the use of social media WhatsApp for learning as part of clinical rotation and teaching.Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed in the Surgical Unit 1 Civil Hospital Karachi, Dow University of Health Sciences, from January 2015 till December 2015. The participants included were final-year MBBS students attending ward rotation. This was questionnaire-based study; students were given formed questionnaire to evaluate their responses in terms of level of satisfaction, improvement in learning, level of comfort, self-assessment, on Likert scale of 1–5, 1 being not helpful and 5 being highly informative. The results were analyzed with SPSS version 17.RESULTS: Most of the students participated at least twice weekly in a 3-month session of online discussion session on WhatsApp. Majority had satisfying experience with only 2% being not satisfied. Of all, 59.6% felt an improvement in their knowledge after sessions while 80% agreed with curriculum relevance. Majority (88%) said that they were motivated for more learning and helped in education. Self-assessments were also done with social media according to 76% of participants. Sixty percent showed great level of comfort with facilitator.CONCLUSION: The results of this study highlights that the usage of social media in education and learning is helpful for the purpose of enhancing the interactive learning.