Health Science Students’ Use of Social Media for Educational Purposes: A Sample from a Medical University in Hanoi, Vietnam

BACKGROUND: Using social media (SM) for educational purposes might improve academic performance. AIM: This paper aims to describe health science students’ use of SM for educational purposes and its association with their academic performance. METHODS: Two hundred ninety-seven undergraduate health science students completed a self-administered questionnaire comprising 4 sections related to social media. RESULTS: Almost all students (99.7%) reported using SM for learning, most (90.9%) of them daily. The most preferred type of SM learning was Facebook. Most students thought that using SM for learning is convenient and useful. They suggested there should be 1 Facebook account for each subject, that every classmate could access to obtain knowledge from lecturers and to interact between students and lecturers. The logistic regression model showed that the more time students practiced following the advice on posted information, the more likely they were to achieve a GPA at distinction level or above (OR = 4.2; OR = 5.4, and OR = 9.4, respectively with times of practicing). Conversely, the students who used SM for learning less than once a month were less likely to obtain a GPA at distinction level (OR = 0.5). CONCLUSIONS: Almost all health science students used SM to support learning and use of SM for learning was associated with higher academic performance.