Use of smartphone application WhatsApp® as an e-learning method for residents teaching: a multicenter, controlled, randomized trial (Preprint)

Abstract

The WhatsApp® (WA) smartphone application is the most widely used instant messaging application in the world. Recent studies report the use of WA for educational purposes but there is no prospective study comparing WA's pedagogical effectiveness to any other teaching modality. The goal of this study was to evaluate this cross-platform messaging as a pedagogic tool for the teaching of residents.

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of WA on clinical reasoning.

Prospective, randomized, multicenter study conducted among first and second year anesthesiology residents (online recruitment) from four university hospitals in France. Residents were randomized in two groups of online teaching (WA and control). The WA group benefited from daily delivery on the WA application of teaching documents and a weekly clinical case supervised by a senior physician. In the control group, residents had access to the same documents via a traditional computer e-learning platform. Medical reasoning was self-assessed online by script concordance test (SCT; primary parameter) and medical knowledge by multiple choice questions (MCQ). The residents completed an online satisfaction questionnaire.

In this study, 62 residents were randomized (32 in WA group, 30 in control group), 22 residents in each group answered the online final evaluation. We found a difference between WA and control groups for SCT (60 ± 9 % vs. 68 ± 11 %, respectively; P = .006) but no difference for MCQ (18 ± 4 /30 vs. 16 ± 4 /30, respectively; P = .22). Concerning satisfaction, there was a better global satisfaction rate in the WA group compared to control (9 ± 1 /10 vs. 8 ± 2 /10; P = .049).

In this study, the use of WA compared to traditional e-learning for resident teaching was associated with worse clinical reasoning despite better global appreciation. The use of WA probably contributes to the dispersion of attention linked to the use of the smartphone. The impact of smartphones on clinical reasoning should be further studied.