A Facebook Group for Rural Nurses to develop Research

Proposal Writing Skills

Dr Jennifer Chipps1

Prof Petra Brysiewicz1

Fiona WaltersP

Dr Christopher Pimmer2

Dr Sebastian Linxen2

Prof Urs Grobhiel2

1School of Nursing and Public Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa2Institute of Information Systems, University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Northwestern Switzerland

The Problem

doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000294.g004

The Problem

• ± 840 km • ± 526 km • ± 574 km• ± 694 Km • ± 420 km

The Approach• Post Nurse Registration UG

degree in Advanced Midwifery

• Blended Learning– Videoconference-based

education to rural sites– Local Research Project

• Mobile phone Research Support Facebook Group to support students in developing a 2-page research concept paper

The Results

• https://www.facebook.com/groups/admresearchgroup/

• 57 students (68.8%) completed the pre-survey. • Low computer use for education & only 38.2% used Facebook. • Project officer visited the 5 site and installed Facebook on phones• All second year students (47) enrolled in the Facebook Group. • The Research Support Facebook Group ran over 4 months• Intensive participation & rich forms of mentoring activities found• All student groups submitted feasible research project plans

Where to next?• PhD Support Group for students doing a

systematic reviews as part of their PhD

• If students visit our LMS sites as often as they go on Facebook, we will have far more active engagement in learning.