Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Sep 6, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Sep 10, 2018 - Nov 5, 2018
Date Accepted: Dec 29, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
WeChat as a Platform for Problem-Based Learning in a Dental Practical Clerkship: Feasibility Study
Background:
Problem-Based-Learning (PBL) has been widely accepted in student-centered medical education. Since WeChat is the most popular communication app in China, we have chosen to use WeChat as new platform for online PBL in order to reduce the limitations of traditional PBL in dental practical clerkships.
Objective:
This study aims to demonstrate the feasibility and acceptability of online PBL using WeChat (WeChat-PBL) in a dental practical clerkship.
Methods:
A total of 72 students in a dental practical clerkship and 10 tutors participated in this study from June to August 2017. We created 10 WeChat groups to provide a communication platform for the PBL teaching, in which the students selected the PBL cases themselves from their practical clerkship. After each individual PBL case, group members were required to complete an evaluation on the PBL process itself. A final questionnaire survey was completed by the participants to summarize the long-term evaluation of the whole WeChat-PBL experience after the 3-month clerkship. Data from the PBL cases, WeChat messages, periodic evaluations, and long-term evaluations were collected for analysis.
Results:
There were 45 cases presented in the WeChat-PBL within the 3-month clerkship. All students had positive reactions to the communication within the PBL groups. The results of the periodic evaluation showed that the students and tutors were quite satisfied with the process of WeChat-PBL and appreciated the group members’ contributions and performance. The final questionnaire results indicated that the WeChat-PBL had achieved positive effects.
Conclusions:
The results of this study indicate the feasibility and acceptability of the app, WeChat, for problem-based learning in a dental practical clerkship.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.