The usage of social networking sites by medical students for educational purposes: A meta-analysis and systematic review

Abstract

Background:Online social networking sites (SNSs) (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube) have emerged as rapidly growing mechanisms to exchange personal and professional information among university students. This research aims to determine the medical students’ extent of usage of SNSs for educational purposes.Materials and Methods:Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC), Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), the Cochrane library, and Excerpta Medica Data Base (EMBASE) were searched to retrieve articles from 2004 to 2014, applying predefined search terms and inclusion criteria. The extracted 10 articles were outlined in a narrative synthesis of Quality, Utility, Extent, Strength, Target and Setting of the evidence (QUESTS).Results:Majority (75%) of the respondents admitted using SNSs, whereas 20% used these sites for sharing academic and educational information. No single study explored the impact of the SNSs on the academic performance.Conclusion:Understanding and knowledge of the significant use of SNSs by the medical students demand inclusion of such domains in medical curricula. This will train tomorrow's doctors in fostering their skills of digital technology for educational purposes.

Measuring the extent and nature of use of Social Networking Sites in Medical Education (SNSME) by university students: Results of a multi-center study

“…In terms of the educational use of SNSs, students use these platforms for putting together presentations, timetabling and using calendar of activities, developing collaborative group work, group discussions, facilitating and evaluating learning, faculty support, and for updating regional and global knowledge. A systematic review and meta-analysis by Guraya [7] has reported that 20% of the university medical students used SNSs in sharing information for educational purposes. However, the study could not find any study that envisaged to determine the impact of SNSs on the students’ academic performance.…”

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).…”

YouTube as an Educational Resource in Medical Education: A Scoping Review (Preprint)

“…More recently, social networking sites and applications have introduced new opportunities for learners and medical educators to share, edit, and comment on information through video-sharing sites, such as YouTube [12,13]. YouTube, the largest Internet video-sharing site, has been used extensively for patient, public, and health professional education [14,15].…”