Teaching Medical and Health Sciences students to develop e-posters with Learning Toolbox

Abstract

Introduction: In the 21st Century, medical personnel require electronic and written communication skills in order to communicate with colleagues and patients. These specific skills are seldom taught, as communication skills' teaching and assessment currently emphasises face-to-face, verbal communications. This study aims at teaching some skills required for electronic communication, and evaluating the process. Methodology: We used a specific platform to teach 188 medical and health sciences students, working in groups, to develop e-posters that run as mobile apps, and evaluated the process in terms of resource demands, students' experience (through an online survey), and e-poster quality. Results: From 188 students, a total of 144 students submitted 30 accessible e-posters, and 71 students participated in the survey. The resource demand was equivalent to resource demand for teaching paper poster design and creation. Despite technical problems not related to the platform, the students were able to produce acceptable quality e-posters with reasonable effort. Discussion and Conclusion: This study indicates that it is possible to teach medical and health sciences students the basics of e-poster design, and extend their communication abilities into the realm of electronic communication. This bodes well to prepare them to take their place as e-poster creators in a broad range of spheres, especially for academic conferences and patient communication.

Keywords

• communication skills
• mHealth
• e-posters
• mlearning
• Learning Toolbox