JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

YouTube is considered one of the most popular sources of information among college students.

Objective:

The study is aimed at exploring the use of YouTube as a Pathology learning tool and its relationship to pathology scores among medical students at Jordanian public universities.

Methods:

This is a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study including second to sixth-year medical students from six schools of medicine in Jordan. The questionnaire was distributed among the students using social platforms over a period of 2 months extending from August to October 2022. The questionnaire included six attributes. The first section is for demographic data, and the second section investigated the general use of YouTube and recorded material. The remaining four sections targeted the participants who used YouTube in learning pathology including using YouTube for pathology-related content.

Results:

Of a sample of 699, over 60% of the participants were females, and nearly 50% were second-year students. The results showed that 96.57% of medical students in Jordan were using YouTube in general, and 89.13% were using it as a source of general information and associated with good and very good scores among the users. About 82.26% of medical students in Jordan used YouTube as a learning tool for pathology in particular and achieved high scores with 428 (61.2%) students scoring above 70%. Most participants found that YouTube lectures are more interesting (69.24%) than classic teaching, and could enhance the quality of learning (76.25%). Studying via YouTube videos was associated with higher odds (OR=3.86) and lower odds (OR=0.27) regarding achieving higher scores in the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system courses, respectively. Watching YouTube pathology lectures was related to a better chance of attaining higher scores (OR=1.96). Surprisingly, spending more time watching pathology videos on YouTube while studying for examinations corresponded with lower performance, with an OR of 0.46

Conclusions:

Medical students in Jordan have positive attitudes toward using YouTube in enhancing their pathology learning and attaining higher scores. For this, pathology instructors should spare no effort in enhancing their methods of learning, adopting YouTube as an educational tool into their curricula, and creating new pathology-related YouTube videos to enhance their students’ learning abilities and consequently improve their scores.