Abstract
Objective
Faculty development (FD) is important for continued professional development, but
expense and distance remain challenging. These challenges could be minimized by the
free and asynchronous nature of social media (SM). We sought to determine the utility
and effectiveness of conducting a national online FD activity on Facebook by assessing
participants' perceptions and use and facilitators' challenges.
Methods
An educational activity of a national FD program was managed on a closed Facebook
group. Activities included postings of educational technology goals, abstracting an
article, and commenting on peers' postings. Sources of quantitative data included
the Facebook postings and the survey responses. Surveys before, after, and 6 months
after the activity assessed knowledge, attitudes and self-reported behaviors. Sources
of qualitative data were the open-ended survey questions and the content of the Facebook
postings.
Results
All participants completed the FD activity and evaluations, yielding 38 postings and
115 comments. Before the activity, 88% had a personal Facebook account, 64% were somewhat/very
confident using Facebook, 77% thought SM would be useful for professional networking,
and 12% had used it professionally. Six months after the activity, professional usage
had increased to 35%. Continued use of Facebook for future presentations of this FD
activity was recommended by 76%. Qualitative analysis yielded 12 types of Facebook
postings and 7 themes related to using SM for FD.
Conclusions
Conducting a national FD activity on Facebook yielded excellent participation rates
and positive participant impressions, and it affected professional usage. Facebook
may become an additional tool in the educator's toolbox for FD as a result of its
acceptability and accessibility.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Accepted:
July 21,
2013
Received:
February 1,
2013
Footnotes
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
