Abstract

RODRIGUEZ-MARTINEZ, M. Carmen; VALERIO-URENA, Gabriel; CARDENAS-ANAYA, Carlos A.  and  HERRERA-MURILLO, Dagoberto J.. Perception and reality of WhatsApp use in health sciences students. FEM (Ed. impresa) [online]. 2016, vol.19, n.3, pp.118-124. ISSN 2014-9840.

Aims. To analyze if there are differences between the perception that college students have about using WhatsApp and real data, and also to explore a possible association between the intensity of use of these social tools and academic achievement. Subjects and methods. The research was exploratory and quantitative nature, with the participation of 81 Health Sciences students of the University of Malaga (Spain), enrolled in Occupational Therapy Degree. A survey was used for collecting information about the perception of the use of social tools and, in addition, two instruments were used to collect real information about the use of social tools: firstly, the message log in the WhatsApp application. Secondly, a monitoring tool of activities called RescueTime. These tools provided the exact number of messages sent and received via WhatsApp for a period of time, as well as the daily time spent on WhatsApp, Facebook, email, specific Web pages, office tools and other applications. Results and conclusions. The results showed that, regardless of gender, academic achievement or course, WhatsApp is the most used application by the majority of participants. The perception of WhatsApp's use is higher for the student than real use of WhatsApp. A lineal association between intensity of WhatsApp's use and academic achievement was not found.

Keywords : Academic achievement; Health sciences students; Perception; Reality; Social tools.

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