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. 2022 Jan 5;19(1):581.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19010581.

Social Media Tools for the Development of Pre-Service Health Sciences Researchers during COVID-19 in Pakistan

Muhammad Zaheer Asghar  1   2   3 , Seema Arif  3 , Javed Iqbal  4 , Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen  1
Affiliations

Social Media Tools for the Development of Pre-Service Health Sciences Researchers during COVID-19 in Pakistan

Muhammad Zaheer Asghar et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The development of health sciences researchers has immense significance during a pandemic to control, manage, and prevent future outbreaks of the disease. This study focused on the use of social media tools (SMT) among pre-service health sciences researchers to complement their research competencies (RCT) and research completion levels (RC) during COVID-19. This study used the Vitae research development framework (RDF) to measure research competencies as a mediator between the use of social media tools and research completion levels among post-graduate health sciences students. A cross-section survey research approach was adopted to collect data from the post-graduate students (n = 410) enrolled in health sciences departments at universities in Pakistan. The SmartPLS 3.3.8 software was used to analyze data through Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results revealed that different social media tools such as communication, information management, and multimedia have a direct influence on the research competencies of the pre-service researchers and have an indirect effect on the research completion levels. Health sciences institutions may devise social-media-based instructional strategies to develop post-graduate students' research competencies, such as personal effectiveness, research governance, and research engagement, to help them compile their research and complete their degree program in time during an emergency.

Keywords: COVID-19; health sciences; research competencies; research completion; social media tools.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Conceptual framework.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Path analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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