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

Muhammad Zaheer Asghar, Seema Arif, Javed Iqbal and Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen
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Muhammad Zaheer Asghar: Department of Education, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
Seema Arif: Department of Education, University of Management and Technology, Lahore 54700, Pakistan
Javed Iqbal: School of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen: Department of Education, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 1, 1-22

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: social media tools; research competencies; health sciences; COVID-19; research completion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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