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Evaluating the Use of Social M edia to Increase E ngagement in Public H ealth U nits. Dr Basia Diug 1 & Assoc /Prof Dragan Ilic 1 1 Medical Education Research Quality Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
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Evaluating the Use of Social Media to Increase Engagement in Public Health Units Dr BasiaDiug1 & Assoc/Prof Dragan Ilic1 1 Medical Education Research Quality Unit, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
WTH?…Is Social Media & Why Me!
Definition: • Create and share content or to participate in social networking • E.g. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter
minor trend: as age Source: Yellow Social Media 2013
WHY ‘TWEET’ IN PUBLIC HEALTH • Public health teaching is challenging as it focuses on prevention rather than intervention. • Twitter has a constant feed to the most current research, news and opinions of experts as well as organisations. • # let’s you search by theme • Our recommendations included: • @RobinBellAus (guest lecturer), • @BasiaDiug (unit coordinator), • @theMJA, • @WHO • @Monash_SPHPM • @MERQMU
AIM: To evaluate whether the use of Twitter as an assessment is a successful tool in increasing student engagement with staff, peers and public health concepts
METHODS Incorporate interactivity Twitter activity worth (2%) into a core public health unit. Tasks included: • Play ‘dumb ways to die’ health promotion game and tweet your character’s demise • Students identify a public health issue in their daily lives by posting a photo, image or link to a journal article of interest • Getting students involved in the wider public health conversation by following recommended Twitter accounts and using #sphpm
Activity 1: Public Health Everyday With the person next to you discuss examples of public health that you see every day. Describe on for each scenario: • When you are commuting to this conference • At your hotel • Within the media Questions to discuss: • How difficult was to come up with public health examples? • What are the different public health initiatives that effect our everyday lives? • What role does the media play in public health? Give both a positive and negative example
RESULTS Student cohort: • Bachelor of Biomedical Science • Total of 297 students of which 236 completed all Twitter-related learning activities (79.4%) • 90% of students had previously used some form of social media • All questions posed were either yes/no or used the Likert scale (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree).
Table 1. Use of Twitter in Higher Education * Note – Students may have listed more than one form of social media previously used
Twitter & Grades: Students who completed the Twitter learning activity had significantly higher end-of-semester grades compared to those who did not complete the Twitter learning activity [MD=3.98, 95%CI 0.40-7.55] • Social Media & Grades: No significant difference observed in regards to use of social media and end-of-semester grades [MD=4.28, 95%CI -0.16- 8.59]. • Appropriateness: No significant difference also observed when comparing whether students believed that using twitter was appropriate for classroom learning and their end-of-semester and grades [MD=0.37, 95%CI -3.47- 4.21]
Student Attitudes Overall were positive towards the use of social media in the learning environment. Students believed that the learning tasks using Twitter (Figure 1): • Enabled greater accessibility to staff; • Unique method of promoting public health; & • Facilitated collaboration with peers.
Student Attitudes between those who completed and did not complete the activity There was a significant difference with respect to: • Promoting public health [MD=0.547, 95%CI 0.21- 0.94]; • Facilitating collaboration with peers [MD=-1.78, 95%CI -1.66 -1.89]. • No difference was observed regarding accessibility to staff [MD=0.25, 95%CI -0.11-0.61]. Figure 2: Comparison of student attitudes
Student Attitudes between previous use of twitter Students who were previous twitter uses had: • Greater belief that the tasks would provide greater accessibility to staff when compared to non-users, [MD=-0.36, 95%CI -0.65- 0.07]. However, no difference was observed in attitudes between previous twitter users and non-users with respect to: • Promoting public health, [MD=-0.16, 95%CI -0.46- 0.12], • Facilitating collaboration with peers, [MD=0.25, 95%CI -0.60- 0.08]. Figure 3: Comparison of student attitudes who used twitter previously
Lessons Learnt • Social media can be difficult to use without instruction. • E.g. Only 27% of Twitter’s users under 18-29 - don't assume knowledge. • Scaffold and model – guide students. • Be involved
FUTURE DIRECTIONS • To incorporate this activity into more units with a focus to increased interaction and recent journal articles and media articles. • Develop skills and idea e-professionalism • Follow us on Twitter: @basiadiug @draganilic99 @Monash_SPHPM @MERQMU #sphpm