Text Messaging as a Teaching Tool in a Family Medicine Clerkship Rotation

Today's learners use multiple forms of social communication, such as text messaging, that offer a promising teaching tool for medical education. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a diabetes care curriculum delivered through text messages for third-year medical students on a rural family medicine clerkship.

A pilot study of 119 participants were compared in a parallel group randomized controlled trial evaluating medical student learning and satisfaction with text messages throughout rotation compared to an email with the same content in their first week of rotation. Participants completed a 10-question multiple-choice test and six survey questions upon completing the rotation. The primary outcome was a difference between test scores among the two groups, and student satisfaction with the educational intervention was a secondary outcome.

A total of 85 participants successfully completed the study protocol (34 text messages and 51 email) and were included in a per protocol analysis. The average number of correct responses per test was 3.32 (SD 1.29) in the texting group and 3.69 (SD 1.53) in the email group (P=0.259). Student satisfaction with text messages was 3.68 (SD 0.87) compared to email at 2.02 (SD 0.95) when rating the educational intervention on a 1 to 5 Likert scale (1=poor, 3=average, and 5=excellent).

Participant knowledge on a challenging posttest was not improved with text messages compared to an email in this pilot study. Satisfaction with text messages was primarily positive. Further study is needed to determine the effectiveness of this content delivery method.