Learning by doing: Smartphone app in undergraduate medical students' research

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:In communication process, feedback plays a major role. Usually, a formal/informal feedback is collected from students on their experience and understanding about the tasks given by the mentor to assess the learning process. Receiving high-quality feedback (positive or negative) is valuable from multiple perspectives. Students may or may not enjoy sessions on innovative teaching–learning methods; in that case, feedback helps to modify it into a more effective and acceptable method of teaching.METHODOLOGY:With an objective to understand the students’ perception on a smartphone app in community-based research, a cross-sectional study was planned among undergraduate students posted for the re-orientation of medical education. Epicollect5, a mobile app, was used for data capture. Students were requested to submit their feedback by using the same app which they had used during the survey. The received feedback was analyzed and presented in proportions.RESULTS:Students shared that the new tool was easy to install (97.5%), user friendly (100%), saved time in data collection and data entry (100%), and they also missed the usual practice of paper-based questionnaire survey (12.5%) and data entry in excel sheet (7.5%).CONCLUSION:The students liked and enjoyed the paperless method of data collection and entry which saved time and improved the quality of the data. They were also interested to learn more on the designing or framing the questionnaire in app and planned to use the app in future research. The feedback conveyed the immense welcome for new technology by the students into medical curriculum.

Assessment of Smartphone Medical Applications as a Self-Directed Learning Tool for Medical Students and Compulsory Rotatory Residential Internship—A KAP Survey

“…The attitude of medical students was approximately 71.6% with a combination of agreeing and strongly agrees that medical apps are beneficial and allows faster access to medical information, as shown in Table 4 . In the present study, the recorded data response was quite similar to other studies from India 2 – 6 and Saudi Arabia. 7 …”

“… 10 , 11 In Pondicherry and other states of India, other important mobile apps were used namely Epicollect5 and ROME as SDL tools for UG medical graduates. 4 , 17 – 20 In our study, 46% of students use smartphone apps at least once a day which is similar to other studies. 1 , 2 , 6 , 7 , 11 The students who have submitted their responses said that they found it to be very easy to install and user-friendly, during the research.…”

“…Globally, smartphones have become a powerful tool for students’ especially medical graduates. 1 – 16 Students are always evolving and applying new technologies for their learning needs. Due to COVID-19 pandemic which started in December 2019 in Wuhan (China) and a global lockdown, all institutions suffered especially students’ education which culminated during the lockdown.…”

“… 13 , 16 Most of the educational institutions, especially medical universities, have shifted to online learning and demonstration during lockdown period. 4 , 11 –18 Hence, most medical institutions have changed their methods of teaching for their students due to this transition from traditional to exclusively online learning. Shifting to online learning was made easy for the medical graduates because they are already familiar with online textbooks, video lecture modules, computer-based exams, etc.…”

“…A friendly user version of medical apps is available in the apps store to download onto mobiles and to increase popularity among medical students as well as young clinicians. 4 – 7 , 10 , 11 …”