Medical students’ use of Facebook for educational purposes

Abstract

Medical students use Facebook to interact with one another both socially and educationally. This study investigates how medical students in a UK medical school use Facebook to support their learning. In particular, it identifies the nature of their educational activities, and details their experiences of using an educational Facebook group. Twenty-four medical students who self-identified as being Facebook users were invited to focus groups to attain a general overview of Facebook use within an educational context. A textual analysis was then conducted on a small group of intercalating medical students who used a self-created Facebook group to supplement their learning. Five of these students participated in semi-structured interviews. Six common themes were generated. These included ‘collaborative learning’, ‘strategic uses for the preparation for assessment’, ‘sharing experiences and providing support’, ‘creating and maintaining connections’, ‘personal planning and practical organization’ and ‘sharing and evaluating educational resources’. Evidence from this study shows that medical students are using Facebook informally to enhance their learning and undergraduate lives. Facebook has enabled students to create a supportive learning community amongst their peers. Medical educators wishing to capitalize on Facebook, as a platform for formal educational initiatives, should remain cautious of intruding on this peer online learning community.

Social media: Insights for medical education from instructor perceptions and usage

“…Worldwide, there are more than one billion active users of Facebook (Facebook, 2017) and YouTube (YouTube, 2017), and over 300 million active monthly users of Twitter (Twitter, 2017). These figures include high levels of SoMe activity among undergraduate students for educational as well as social purposes (Ali, 2016;Guraya, 2016;Knight-McCord et al, 2016;Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman, & Witty, 2010;Tess, 2013) and such usage parallels the availability of remote SoMe access achieved through uptake in smart devices (Buchholz, Perry, Weiss, & Cooley, 2016;Evrim, 2014;Gökçearslan, Mumcu, Haşlaman, & Çevik, 2016;Ozdalga, Ozdalga, & Ahuja, 2012;Ponce, Méndez, & Peñalvo, 2014). In the early to mid2000s, SoMe and Web 2.0 arose as new, exciting and innovative technologies (Boyd & Ellison, 2007) that instructors began to incorporate into educational activities (Booth & Hultén, 2003;Mazer, Murphy, & Simonds, 2007) and the increasing interest in SoMe during this period is reflected in the volume of educational literature on this topic (Asiri & Househ, 2016;Aydin, 2012;Kakushi & Evora, 2016;Lafferty & Manca, 2015;McAndrew & Johnston, 2012;Pander, Pinilla, Dimitriadis, & Fischer, 2014;& Cochran, 2012), blurring of the staff-student boundary (Mazer et al, 2007); unprofessional usage (Kitsis et al, 2016); and impacts on lecturer credibility (Hutchens & Hayes, 2014).…”

Pharmacy Students’ Informal Use of Facebook and its Perceived Role in Pharmacy Education in Jordan

“…9,10 Facebook ® facilitates the creation of an efficient learning environment by enabling different forms of communications using personal profiles, private or public groups, or public pages. 11 These options are not provided by most available e-learning systems, making Facebook ® a good alternative as a formal and informal e-learning tool. 12 There is growing evidence for the importance of Facebook ® implementation and utilization among students of healthrelated disciplines.…”

Medical student use of Facebook to support preparation for anatomy assessments

“…Moreover, the inappropriate use of social media can raise issues such as professionalism and confidentiality which are of particular importance for anatomy students within healthcare curricula. As reported, within medical education the use of social media can be of clear benefit to medical students (Ali, 2016;Cartledge et al, 2013;Hennessy et al, 2016;Jaffar and Eladl, 2016), but being aware of the boundaries and potential pitfalls of posting comments on such platforms is of paramount importance (Peluchette and Karl, 2008;Chretien et al, 2009;Marnocha et al, 2015). Recent research has highlighted the increased incidence of such unprofessional behavior which has resulted in warnings to students and in some cases exclusion from their course (Chretien et al, 2009).…”