Department of Physiology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
Department of Anatomy, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Adv Physiol Educ. 2019 Sep 1;43(3):383-391. doi: 10.1152/advan.00070.2019.
Medical students increasingly utilize social media platforms to supplement their preclinical learning; however, the prevalence of social media use for physiology learning in medical education remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to determine how first-year medical students from both direct entry medicine and graduate entry medicine interacted with social media as a learning tool by assessing its prevalence, perceived benefits, favored platforms, and reason(s) for its use. Seventy-one percent of surveyed students (out of 139 participants) stated that they interacted with social media in general more than 12 times per week. However, 98% had previously used internet platforms to source physiology information, with 89.2% doing so at least once per week during term. YouTube was the primary source of learning for 76% of students. Significantly, 94% of students indicated that they would first search for answers online if they did not understand something in physiology rather than contacting their instructor in person or by e-mail. However, only 31% of students "fact-checked" physiology information obtained from online sources, by using textbooks, papers, and/or instructors. Our study has revealed that most preclinical medical students utilize social media extensively to study physiology. However, the absence of academic and ethical oversight, paired with students' lack of critical appraisal of possibly inaccurate information, does raise concerns about the overall utility of social media as part of physiology education.
医学生越来越多地利用社交媒体平台来辅助他们的临床前学习；然而，在医学教育中，社交媒体在生理学学习中的应用的普遍性尚不清楚。本研究旨在通过评估其普遍性、感知到的益处、偏好的平台以及使用它的原因，来确定来自直接入学医学和研究生入学医学的一年级医学生如何将社交媒体作为一种学习工具进行互动。71%的被调查学生（共 139 名参与者）表示，他们通常每周与社交媒体互动超过 12 次。然而，98%的学生以前曾使用互联网平台来获取生理学信息，其中 89.2%的学生在学期内每周至少使用一次。YouTube 是 76%学生的主要学习来源。值得注意的是，94%的学生表示，如果他们在生理学方面有不理解的地方，他们会首先在网上搜索答案，而不是亲自或通过电子邮件联系他们的导师。然而，只有 31%的学生“核对”了从在线来源获取的生理学信息，使用了教科书、论文和/或教师。我们的研究表明，大多数临床医学前学生广泛利用社交媒体来学习生理学。然而，缺乏学术和道德监督，加上学生对可能不准确信息缺乏批判性评价，确实让人对社交媒体作为生理学教育一部分的整体效用产生了担忧。
