A Correlation Study of Social Network Usage Among Health Care Students

• Published in: The Journal of nursing education Vol. 54; no. 4; pp. 207 - 213
• Main Authors: Suit, Louise, Winkler, Patricia, Campbell, Linda, Pennington, Karen, Szutenbach, Mary Pat, Haight, Robert, Roybal, Deborah, McCollum, Marianne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States SLACK INCORPORATED 01.04.2015
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; College Students; Communication; Correlation analysis; Grade Point Average; Health education; Humans; Interpersonal communication; Learner Engagement; Middle Aged; Nursing; Nursing education; Outcomes of Education; Reading Comprehension; Social Media - utilization; Social networks; Social Support; Students, Health Occupations; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0148-4834; 1938-2421
• DOI: 10.3928/01484834-20150318-04

Background: Due to anecdotal concerns about adequacy of health professions students’ communication skills, health professions faculty at a private university formed an interprofessional research team. The study was designed to explore whether the use of social networking services (SNS) influenced health care students’ written and oral communication skills. Method: One hundred thirty-two students participated in the study. Communication skills were assessed by using assignments from a health care ethics course required of all students. Use of SNS was measured with an information technology questionnaire. Results: Contrary to expected findings, this exploratory correlation study found no meaningful relationship between the frequency of SNS usage and oral and written communication skills in health professions students. Conclusions: Future studies of SNS would benefit from a younger and more homogeneous study population to assess the use of SNS for learning versus leisure. [Future studies of SNS would benefit from a younger and more homogeneous study population to assess the use of SNS for learning versus leisure. [ J Nurs Educ. 2015;54(4):207–213.]