JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Health practitioners across the globe are rapidly adopting social and mobile media in their professional practices. However, this appropriation carries considerable risks and requires the development of digital professionalism.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to examine the potential of an interactive scenario-based mobile learning tutorial for the training of social and mobile media guidelines and compare it to the standard route of distributing and studying paper-based guidelines.

Methods:

To do so, an experiment was conducted in which 71 Zambian nurses were randomized into two groups. Participants in the first group (n=27) worked through a simple, smartphone-based tutorial with authentic text scenarios and reflective prompts and questions that drew on newly developed social and mobile media guidelines for Zambian nurses and midwives. In the second group (n=31), the nurses studied the paper guideline directly, which is the standard way of guideline dissemination in Zambia and elsewhere. Post-intervention surveys were used to measure nurses’ knowledge of professional social media use, the perceived ease of use and usefulness of the respective instructive materials.

Results:

The results show that nurses’ knowledge about the professional use of social and mobile media (P=.021**) and the perceived usefulness of the learning materials (P=.203*) were higher in the scenario-based mobile learning group - as compared to the paper study group. No differences were found regarding the ease of use. Linear regression analysis suggests that, in the scenario-based mobile group, knowledge outcomes and perceived usefulness and ease of use were not influenced by age, work area and gender. The qualitative analysis from two focus groups (n=13) affirmed and further explained these findings, suggesting how the authenticity of the scenarios, prompts and questions triggered reflective practice.

Conclusions:

The findings provide tentative evidence that the use of scenario-based mobile learning is a simple and viable learning method that can increase awareness and knowledge of digital professionalism. In view of the technical challenges that many health professionals in low-income countries still experience in accessing internet-based content on their phones, these tutorials should be only used in addition to the circulation of guidelines.