Using Facebook for Medical Education: Will Students Respond?
- Author:
Suneet Sood
- Publication Type:Letter
- Keywords:
Social media;
Education, medical;
Facebook;
Behavior;
Internet
- MeSH:
Education, Medical;
Social Media
- From:
The Medical Journal of Malaysia
2015;70(1):59-61
- CountryMalaysia
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
There is little information about the willingness of medical
students to participate in Facebook for education. I analyzed
my interactions with students for the past 14 months to
estimate the quantity of student interaction. A Facebook
Group was created. Students friend requests were accepted,
but “friending” was never solicited. Questions were created
around a clinical situation and posted. Forty questions were
posted. 5/40 questions were about physics/chemistry. 24
questions focused on basic medical sciences. 11 questions
were primarily about clinical medicine. In fourteen months,
533/810 (66%) college students joined the Group. In all,
163/533 students (30%) responded at least once. Half of all
responses were comments; the rest were clicks on the “like”
button. The average number of responses was 9.5 unique
students/question. If participation is voluntary, and targeted
students are large in number, one can expect about 66% of
students to become members of a site, and about 30% of
these to interact. For any given question posted on the site,
about 2% of members will respond, regardless of the nature
of question: clinically oriented or basic.
- Full text:P020150724522148034739.pdf
