Nicolai Leo, Schmidbauer Moritz, Gradel Maximilian, Ferch Sabine, Antón Sofía, Hoppe Boj, Pander Tanja, von der Borch Philip, Pinilla Severin, Fischer Martin, Dimitriadis Konstantinos
Institute for Medical Education, University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.
Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.
J Med Internet Res. 2017 Dec 22;19(12):e408. doi: 10.2196/jmir.7990.
Social networking sites, in particular Facebook, are not only predominant in students' social life but are to varying degrees interwoven with the medical curriculum. Particularly, Facebook groups have been identified for their potential in higher education. However, there is a paucity of data on user types, content, and dynamics of study-related Facebook groups.
The aim of this study was to identify the role of study-related Facebook group use, characterize medical students that use or avoid using Facebook groups (demographics, participation pattern, and motivation), and analyze student posting behavior, covered topics, dynamics, and limitations in Facebook groups with regards to educational usage.
Using a multi-method approach (interviews, focus groups, and qualitative and quantitative analysis of Facebook posts), we analyzed two representative Facebook groups of medical preclinical semesters at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich. Facebook primary posts and replies over one semester were extracted and evaluated by using thematic content analysis. We developed and applied a coding scheme for studying the frequency and distribution of these posts. Additionally, we interviewed students with various degrees of involvement in the groups, as well as "new minorities," students not registered on Facebook.
Facebook groups seem to have evolved as the main tool for medical students at LMU to complement the curriculum and to discuss study-related content. These Facebook groups are self-organizing and quickly adapt to organizational or subject-related challenges posed by the curriculum. A wide range of topics is covered, with a dominance of organization-related posts (58.35% [6916/11,853] of overall posts). By measuring reply rates and comments per category, we were able to identify learning tips and strategies, material sharing, and course content discussions as the most relevant categories. Rates of adequate replies in these categories ranged between 78% (11/14) and 100% (13/13), and the number of comments per post ranged from 8.4 to 13.7 compared with the average overall reply rate of 68.69% (1167/1699) and 3.9 comments per post. User typology revealed social media drivers (>30 posts per semester) as engines of group function, frequent users (11-30 posts), and a majority of average users acting rather as consumers or lurkers (1-10 posts).
For the moment, the medical faculty has no active involvement in these groups and therefore no influence on accuracy of information, professionalism, and ethical issues. Nevertheless, faculty could in the future benefit by extracting relevant information, identifying common problems, and understanding semester-related dynamics.
社交网站，尤其是脸书，不仅在学生的社交生活中占据主导地位，还在不同程度上与医学课程相互交织。特别是，脸书群组在高等教育中的潜力已得到认可。然而，关于与学习相关的脸书群组的用户类型、内容和动态的数据却很匮乏。
本研究旨在确定与学习相关的脸书群组使用的作用，描述使用或避免使用脸书群组的医学生特征（人口统计学、参与模式和动机），并分析脸书群组中与教育用途相关的学生发帖行为、涵盖的主题、动态和局限性。
我们采用多方法途径（访谈、焦点小组以及对脸书帖子的定性和定量分析），对慕尼黑路德维希 - 马克西米利安大学（LMU）医学临床前学期的两个具有代表性的脸书群组进行了分析。通过主题内容分析提取并评估了一个学期内的脸书原始帖子和回复。我们开发并应用了一种编码方案来研究这些帖子的频率和分布。此外，我们采访了不同程度参与群组的学生以及未注册脸书的“新少数群体”学生。
脸书群组似乎已发展成为LMU医学生补充课程和讨论与学习相关内容的主要工具。这些脸书群组是自我组织的，能够迅速适应课程带来的组织或学科相关挑战。涵盖的主题广泛，其中与组织相关的帖子占主导地位（占所有帖子的58.35%[6916/11853]）。通过测量每个类别中的回复率和评论数，我们确定学习技巧和策略、资料分享以及课程内容讨论是最相关的类别。这些类别的充分回复率在78%（11/14）至100%（13/13）之间，每个帖子的评论数在8.4至13.7之间，而总体平均回复率为68.69%（1167/1699），每个帖子的平均评论数为3.9条。用户类型分析显示，社交媒体活跃者（每学期>30个帖子）是群组功能的推动者，频繁用户（11 - 30个帖子），以及大多数普通用户更多地充当消费者或潜水者（1 - 10个帖子）。
目前，医学院没有积极参与这些群组，因此对信息准确性、专业性和伦理问题没有影响。然而，未来教师可能会从提取相关信息、识别常见问题以及了解与学期相关的动态中受益。
