Social Media Use and Educational Preferences Among First-Year Pharmacy Students

Background: Social media may offer a means to engage students, facilitate collaborative learning, and tailor educational delivery for diverse learning styles. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to characterize social media awareness among pharmacy students and determine perceptions toward integrating these tools in education. Methods: A 23-item survey was administered to 1st-year students at a multicampus college of pharmacy. Results: Students (95% response rate; N = 196) most commonly used wikis (97%), social networking (91%), and videosharing (84%). Tools reported as never used or unknown included social bookmarking (89%), collaborative writing (84%), and RSS readers (73%). Respondents indicated that educational integration of social media would impact their ability to learn in a positive/very positive manner (75%) and make them feel connected/very connected (68%). Conclusions: Selectively targeting social media for educational integration and instructing pharmacy students how to employ a subset of these tools may be useful in engaging them and encouraging lifelong learning.