Table. Review matrix for literature on cybercivility in health professional education Medicine –
Faculty (n = 78)
SNS – blogs More than half of the respondents reported having seen incidents of students posting unprofessional online content.
Student use of profanity (52%), frankly discriminatory language (48%), depiction of intoxication (39%), and sexually suggestive material (38%) was reported.
Open-ended responses included sexual-relational content, negative school experiences, intoxication or illicit substance use, and blogs that described clinical experiences with enough detail that patients could potentially be identified.
H H M-H A
u t h o r ( s ) ( y e a r ) / c o u n t r y / s t u d y d e s i g n
H e a l t h d i s c i p l i n e – P a r t i c i p a n t s , s a m p l e s i z e
Key finding
s
Chretien et al.
(2009)/U.S./Survey
Chretien et al.
(2010)/U.S./Focus group
Medicine – students (n = 64)
SNS – Facebook
Participants considered that posting pictures depicting intoxication or sexually suggestive material was inappropriate. Speaking poorly about attending physicians, their medical school, or specific classmates was also seen as inappropriate.
Some students felt that nothing was inappropriate as long as it did not impact their own personal relationship with their clients or groups.
Most students did not believe that formal guidelines for posting online content were necessary or desirable.
H H M-H
Clark et al.
(2012a)/U.S./
Survey
Nursing – faculty (n = 14) and students (n = 131)
Online courses – discussion boards, emails, and exams
Students identified as their challenges: lack of student participation in group work; lack of faculty clarity; excessive reading and assignment writing; receiving a group grade regardless of individual contribution; and delayed faculty responses.
Faculty identified as their challenges: time-intensiveness, difficulty creating a sense of community, lack of face-to-face contact to address issues, and rude behaviors caused by anonymity.
Providing clearly defined course expectations, norms, and consequences for uncivil behavior; faculty role modeling of professionalism and civility; and addressing incivility immediately and holding offenders accountable were identified as strategies to create a civil online learning environment.
M H H-H
Clark et al.
(2012b)/U.S./
Survey
Nursing – faculty (n = 19) and students (n = 152)
Online courses – discussion boards, emails, and exams
Faculty and students perceived incivility in the online learning environment to be a mild to moderate problem.
Only 5.6% of faculty and 4.4% of students perceived incivility as a serious problem, while 16.7% of faculty and 40.2% of students did not think of incivility as a problem at all.
The top 3 student uncivil behaviors reported by faculty included: name calling or making rude comments (83.3%); making belittling comments about a faculty member to others (83.3%); and using racial, ethnic, sexual, or religious slurs (83.3%).
The top 3 student uncivil behaviors reported by students included: using racial, ethnic, sexual, or religious slurs (87.5%); criticizing nontraditional subcultures such as avatars or vamps (87.3%); and taking credit for others’
work (86.1%).
The top 5 faculty uncivil behaviors reported by students included: making personal attacks or threatening comments (88.4%); name calling, making rude comments (87.1%); making belittling comments toward students (87.0%); changing assignments or course requirements without warning (85.7%); and making belittling comments about a faculty member (85.6%).
M H H-H
Garner &
O'Sullivan
(2010)/UK/Survey
Medicine – students (n = 56)
SNS – Facebook
Over half of the students admitted that there were photographs of themselves on Facebook that they found embarrassing.
Over half of the students reported that they found unprofessional behaviors
M H M-M
Note: a Gough’s weight of evidence framework: 1 = coherence and integrity of the evidence in its own terms; 2 = appropriateness of the form of evidence in answering research questions; 3 = relevance of the evidence in answering the research questions; 4 = overall assessment of study contribution to answering the research questions; H = high; M = medium; L = low; SNS = social networking sites; HIPAA = Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act