Social Media in Nursing Education: The View of the Students

Abstract

Social media usage in nursing education is limited and the active use of various new developed learning environments are left behind. The purpose of this research was to survey second-year nursing students' social media usage in studies and in their free time. The research was also interested to know students' interest and skill level in using different social media applications. The research presented a descriptive survey research design. The data was collected from second-year nursing students ( = 150) through electronic and paper questionnaire in 2012. The questionnaire contained 20 structured questions and was analyzed statistically. The response rate was 61.4%. Students used social media applications more in their free time than in their studies. The most used applications in studies were an e-learning environment. Web video and online community services were the most used applications in their free time. The least used application was online games, in studies and in free time. Students were evaluated as having an excellent skill level in using social media, and they felt that the social media application was interesting. The relationship between age and application skill level was statistically significant. Younger students had better skills in using social media applications than older students.

Use of Social Media By Nurse Educator Students: An Exploratory Survey

“…In the future, nurse educator education should offer even more in-depth information about the different types of social media, about the advantages of such media and how to use them in teaching. Moreover, educators need to find ways of getting inside the student’s head to understand better how students use and think about these tools and clearly more research is needed here [5, 32]. In addition, educator education should offer more training in the various types of social media and, in this way, encourage candidates to use social media as support in their daily lives and studies.…”

“…New and advanced teaching methods have also been introduced in the field of health care and nursing of late. Nursing and also other health care students in fact tend to use the new forms of social media many hours a day [4, 5]. Social media was understood as a wider term including collaborative projects ( e.g.…”

“…user generated content, content communities, content sharing and social online networking sites), social networking meaning as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, blog, Wiki and chat. [6] Therefore, health care educators need to update their traditional pedagogical methods so that they conform more to the current era of technology [5, 7]. …”

“…Only 11% of nurses report using social media. [9] However, health care educators’ use of social media in teaching is still limited [5, 10]. For example, social media can be used as educational means by having reflective journal blogs or having closed groups on Facebook to share learning experiences [12].…”

“…[11, 23] Furthermore, studies have reported that just as students are using different social media forms, educators are also using them in their personal life so they should be familiar to these methods and therefore to be able to adopt these to teaching routines as well. But even still, social media is rarely used in higher education teaching [5, 11]. …”