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| Theme: 3AA Mobile learning and social networks |
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| Mobile chat application: A new way of student support | ||
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Authors: |
Srisuda Songthamwat Metha Songthamwat |
Institutions: | Udonthani medical education center - Thailand |
Medical students are faced with many stresses which have an effect on their performance and learning. Competition, information overload, examinations, staff and time management are all common problems in the medical student’s stress. Also financial or relationship problems can cause stress in their life.Student support is important in medical education. It can solve the student’s problems and enhance the facility of learning. The traditional student support method used in our center was assignment of a staff person to each student and schedule meetings. A new method was the introduction of instant communication application which allows for mobile group chat.
60 medical students and 5 staff participated in this program. 93.8 % of the student and 80.0 % of the staff had more satisfaction with the new method than the traditional method. The satisfaction was highest in the convenience of use and relationship improvement with staff.
This descriptive study was conducted with fourth and sixth year medical students during their period of study at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology between December 2014 and March 2015. The use of new support method was introduced to the students using the mobile chat application; Line (Line Corporation).
The process began by asking the volunteer staff from our department for this new program. This program was done by volunteer without payment. Every group of block rotation, all medical students was introduced to the mobile chat application during the introduction session for their rotation in the department.
The main group with all students and staff member was created in the application. Then the subgroups were created which the students can choose more than one advisor by themselves and the advisors could accept as much as they could manage the subgroup. The consultation was done in any topics depend on the agreement of both sides
The satisfaction of both staff and students were evaluated using a questionnaire at the end of the student’s rotation in the department to compare their Line experience with the traditional method. The content of the consultation was not evaluated due to privacy issues, however staff was asked to estimate the number of consultation per week and the proportion of consultations by five categories; academic, careers, professional, personal and administrative.
Mobile chat application is a good student support method. It can be used to enhance the student’s learning with good satisfaction for both the medical student and staff.
The student support system should be applied in the familiar way of students. Nowadays, social media can be used to help the student with high satisfaction