Department of Surgery, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital , Boston , MA USA.
NEJM Group , Waltham , MA , USA.
Med Teach. 2019 Nov;41(11):1270-1276. doi: 10.1080/0142159X.2019.1635685. Epub 2019 Jul 17.
Asynchronous virtual learning communities provide learners with the ability to enhance their learning and contribute to their peers' learning in a safe environment. However, the tone and content of learner comments, the level of engagement among learners, and the role of moderators have not been well studied within non-course-related virtual learning communities. Therefore, we sought to explore these characteristics using the NEJM Knowledge+ Question of the Week (NEJM Knowledge+ QoW) forum, a web-based asynchronous virtual learning community. We reviewed 73 NEJM Knowledge+ questions posted on the QoW forum between 2015 and 2016. We then selected three QoWs to analyze through a multistep coding process based on three broad criteria that aligned with our study aims. Learner comments reflected both positive and critical tones, with learners sharing their own clinical practice and local experiences to contextualize their perspectives and reactions to both the QoW answer and the responses of other learners. Learners also commonly requested moderators to act as expert referees. Asynchronous virtual learning communities can engage learners by providing the opportunity to enhance their knowledge through responding to proposed medical scenarios and sharing their experiences in a discussion forum. Future work should examine the impact that geographic region has on asynchronous virtual learning communities and the role of moderators in shaping the learning experience.
异步虚拟学习社区为学习者提供了在安全的环境中增强学习和促进同伴学习的能力。然而，在与课程无关的虚拟学习社区中，学习者评论的语气和内容、学习者的参与程度以及主持人的作用尚未得到充分研究。因此，我们试图通过使用基于网络的异步虚拟学习社区 NEJM Knowledge+ 每周问答（NEJM Knowledge+ QoW）论坛来探讨这些特征。我们回顾了 2015 年至 2016 年期间在 QoW 论坛上发布的 73 个 NEJM Knowledge+ 问题。然后，我们根据与我们的研究目标一致的三个广泛标准，通过一个多步骤的编码过程选择了三个 QoW 进行分析。学习者的评论反映了积极和批评的语气，学习者分享自己的临床实践和当地经验，以使他们对 QoW 答案和其他学习者的反应的观点和反应具有背景。学习者还经常要求主持人充当专家裁判。异步虚拟学习社区可以通过提供通过对提出的医疗情景做出反应并在讨论论坛上分享经验来增强知识的机会来吸引学习者。未来的工作应该研究地理区域对异步虚拟学习社区的影响以及主持人在塑造学习体验方面的作用。
