Evaluation of the Effect of Short Message Service on Teaching Key Points in Pediatrics

Background: Nowadays, due to the emergence of new and advanced technologies, methods of medical education have undergone several changes. Because students often spend many minutes per day using mobile phone and its features, and this is a great attraction for them. This study was an attempt to assess the capabilities of the mobile phone technology to be used for teaching the key points of pediatrics. Methods: this study is a survey research. The population of this study includes medical students in the 93-92 school year who were selected in three different course of pediatrics. Available samples were selected from extern students (n = 85) and interns of pediatrics department (n=37). In this study multiple-choice questions were designed according to selected topics of courses which were taught during the period of externship and internship. Every day for 30 days one question was send via short message service (SMS) to students of pediatrics department. Students read the question and sent back the correct answers by text message as soon as possible. At the end of the course, also a researcher-designed questionnaire was used to assess the students' attitudes toward the usefulness of this method. To assess the validity of the questionnaire, content validity was used and the reliability was assessed with Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.80. Data were analyzed using SPSS16. Data analysis was performed in two levels of descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation (SD)) and inferential statistics (One-Sample and independent t-test). Results: Mean (± SD) score of the questionnaire for extern students and interns were 4.44±0.56 and 4.45± 0.59 respectively, and given that these means were significantly higher than 3 (cut-off point), this shows a desirability of the project of  sending short messages from the perspective of medical students of pediatrics department. The difference between the average scores of extern students and interns in level of α=0.5 was not statistically significant (p= 0.92, t=0.08). Conclusions: This study showed that the usage of short message service in the educational system has a positive effect on medical students learning, furthermore, students and interns believed that continuing this educational program has a good efficiency for their future career.