Digital literacy of physiotherapy students

A barrier to international e-learning?

Michael Rowe UWC, South AfricaDirk Vissers Antwerp, BelgiumShofiqul Islam Savar Dhaka, BangladeshJan Taeymans Bern, Switzerland

Background

The creative use of emerging technologies, combined with innovations in teaching practices and continuing education, has a significant role to play in health professions education that is aimed at addressing the health challenges of the 21st century (Frenk et al, 2010; WHO, 2013)

Integration of technology & pedagogical design can facilitate the development of critical thinking, promote self-directed learning & collaboration, enhance communication & change power relationships between teachers and students (Rowe,

Bozalek & Frantz, 2013; Rowe, 2016)

International Ethics projecthttps://internationalethicsproject.wordpress.com/

IEP collaborators

University of the Western Cape, South AfricaUniversidade Federal de Minas Gerais, BrazilUniversidade Estadual de Maringa, BrazilLuisa Patricia Fogarolli de Carvalho, BrazilUniversidade Federal do Espírito Santo, BrazilUniversity of Antwerp, BelgiumUniversity of Cape Town, South AfricaUniversity of Dhaka, BangladesAhfad University for Women, SudanBern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland

Study aim

To determine the digital literacy of an international sample of physiotherapy students in preparation for the implementation of the blended module in professional ethics.

Methods

Instrument design: Modified version of the ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology (http://ht.

ly/5lto3014N6i)

Piloted for content validity and test-retest reliability (Kappa and weighted Kappa tests showed good reliability)

Students who would not be in the IEP course from UWC and Antwerp, surveyed one week apart

Most of the survey items had Kappa values between 0.5 – 0.6 (indicating moderate agreement); 0.7 – 0.8 (indicating strong agreement); or >0.8 (indicating almost perfect agreement)

Methods (cont.)

Setting and sample: Administered questionnaire to a sample of 246 predominantly first-year PT students in Antwerp, Belgium (n=120), Bern, Switzerland (n=52), Dhaka, Bangladesh (n=38) and Cape Town, South Africa (n=36)

Results | Devices

There was a significant difference (p<0.001) between universities in owning a laptop and tablet, and access to Wi-Fi on campus.

These students primarily used a smartphone (65%) and a laptop (29%) to connect to the internet (p<0.001 across groups). A laptop was considered most important for their academic success by 81% of the respondents, followed by a smartphone (41%), a desktop (12%) and a tablet (8%).

Results | Learning environment

Most students reported that they preferred learning in environments that included some online components (69%; p>0.001 across groups), and although there was a significant difference between universities, most students indicated that they would prefer lecture capture to be used more frequently (50%).

Only a minority of the total sample had ever written a blog post (8%), edited a wiki (6%), or subscribed to RSS feeds (6%), all of which could be considered important skills for learning in online or blended environments.

Conclusions

We found differences in baseline digital literacy across different departments that highlighted some of the possible challenges inherent in the implementation of distributed online courses

These different levels of digital literacy have an important influence on decision making around open online course design

We should avoid making assumptions about students’ level of digital literacy when using digital technologies for academic tasks and learning

Thank youmrowe@uwc.ac.zamrowe.co.za/blog@michael_rowe