Jain T1, Lebec M1
1Northern Arizona University, Physical Therapy and Athletic Training, Flagstaff, United States
Background: With advances in technology, social media landscape has exploded in recent years and has transformed the way we interact with each other and learn new content. The development of critical thinking skills and clinical reasoning capability are important outcomes of physical therapy students´ education. Many college courses now utilize online discussion boards and social media to supplement in-class student learning. In our previous study, students demonstrated increased satisfaction and a higher level of engagement with discussions done on twitter when compared to discussions done on Blackboard learning management system. This follow-up study was important in order to determine the role of twitter on development of cognitive/meta-cognitive and learning skills in physical therapy students.
Purpose: To blend twitter with class discussions and explore:
1) the nature and quality of Twitter posts, and
2) critical thinking elements in the tweets made by the students during the duration of the course.
Methods: Forty-seven students (age, 23.9±4.7 years) enrolled in the Therapeutic Exercise course in the entry-level Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program at Northern Arizona University during the summer of 2017 participated in this study. Students were introduced to the basics of twitter chat/terminology and assisted in creating twitter accounts during the introductory class. Course discussions on twitter were held each week to discuss the course material covered in that respective week. Two researchers utilized qualitative methods to independently assess the nature of student twitter postings over the course of a semester. Postings were in reaction to questions posed by students related to concepts discussed during that week of traditional instruction. After multiple rounds of analysis and collaboration between researchers, latent content analysis of the data revealed salient themes reflective of the nature of student discussions and the level of cognitive processing reflected in their postings.
Results: Twitter postings suggested that online interactions focused on themes related to providing individualized patient care, benefits of inter-professional practice, methods to effectively achieve motivation and compliance amongst patients, and the utilization of twitter to share resources related to the discussion. The majority of postings were reflective of Knowledge, Comprehension, Analysis, and Application levels of cognitive processing. Reflection indicative of Synthesis and Evaluation was considerably less evident.
Conclusion(s): Students did utilize Twitter to engage with course content and focused on discussion topics associated with providing enhanced patient care in a variety of forms. The vast majority of postings were reflective of the lower to middle levels of cognitive processing. Though it is possible students may have internally engaged in higher levels of processing, the ability to assess the presence of such reflection in posts of limited characters may be limited.
Implications: This study aids the instructors in determining the types of interactions that are possible via Twitter postings. This group did utilize the tool for further reflection on course concepts. The use of Twitter to assess for the presence of higher levels of cognitive processing during online interactions, however, may be limited due to its inherent constraints.
Keywords: Teaching/learning strategies, social media, physical therapy education
Funding acknowledgements: This work was unfunded.
Purpose: To blend twitter with class discussions and explore:
1) the nature and quality of Twitter posts, and
2) critical thinking elements in the tweets made by the students during the duration of the course.
Methods: Forty-seven students (age, 23.9±4.7 years) enrolled in the Therapeutic Exercise course in the entry-level Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) program at Northern Arizona University during the summer of 2017 participated in this study. Students were introduced to the basics of twitter chat/terminology and assisted in creating twitter accounts during the introductory class. Course discussions on twitter were held each week to discuss the course material covered in that respective week. Two researchers utilized qualitative methods to independently assess the nature of student twitter postings over the course of a semester. Postings were in reaction to questions posed by students related to concepts discussed during that week of traditional instruction. After multiple rounds of analysis and collaboration between researchers, latent content analysis of the data revealed salient themes reflective of the nature of student discussions and the level of cognitive processing reflected in their postings.
Results: Twitter postings suggested that online interactions focused on themes related to providing individualized patient care, benefits of inter-professional practice, methods to effectively achieve motivation and compliance amongst patients, and the utilization of twitter to share resources related to the discussion. The majority of postings were reflective of Knowledge, Comprehension, Analysis, and Application levels of cognitive processing. Reflection indicative of Synthesis and Evaluation was considerably less evident.
Conclusion(s): Students did utilize Twitter to engage with course content and focused on discussion topics associated with providing enhanced patient care in a variety of forms. The vast majority of postings were reflective of the lower to middle levels of cognitive processing. Though it is possible students may have internally engaged in higher levels of processing, the ability to assess the presence of such reflection in posts of limited characters may be limited.
Implications: This study aids the instructors in determining the types of interactions that are possible via Twitter postings. This group did utilize the tool for further reflection on course concepts. The use of Twitter to assess for the presence of higher levels of cognitive processing during online interactions, however, may be limited due to its inherent constraints.
Keywords: Teaching/learning strategies, social media, physical therapy education
Funding acknowledgements: This work was unfunded.
Topic: Education: methods of teaching & learning; Education
Ethics approval required: Yes
Institution: Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA
Ethics committee: Institutional Review Board
Ethics number: 697715
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
