Using action research to develop Pinterest pages as an educational resource in nursing education: A UK perspective

21^st World Nursing Education Conference

July 16-18, 2018 Melbourne, Australia

Kim Moore

Birmingham City University, UK

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Social media platforms are used predominantly as virtual social network tools to enable remote access communication between and across social groups. Growing utilization of this media in education has transferred to nursing education programs with a significant number of nurses using social media apps such as Pinterest to share learning and ideas. In the United Kingdom (UK), the formalized use of Pinterest as a teaching resource in nursing programs is significantly limited. Using action research, Pinterest pages were introduced as a learning resource within the third year of a BSc (honors) nursing program in the West Midlands in 2015. Students are informed of this resource which is linked to their learning resources however they were not required to utilize this. Over two years Pinterest has been maintained as an active learning resource within the third year taught module on policy and politics in nursing with students being able to opt in to using the pages. At the onset of this research Pinterest was not known to students and there were no people following these resources. In 24 months, the number of boards has increased to reflect the taught topic and currently has 305 followers with 105 people who follow these boards. This action research study suggests that without active marketing nursing students and other interested groups find Pinterest boards� useful informational resources and there is potential to incorporate and actively promote the use of this social media platform within the learning environment for UK nurses and nursing students.