Microlearning through TikTok in Higher Education. An evaluation of uses and potentials

While social media is evolving rapidly, understanding its underlying and persistent features with the potential to support high-quality learning would provide opportunities to enhance competence acquisition and collaborative work in higher education. Moreover, the adoption of tools that students already use in their everyday lives facilitates the integration of new forms of learning. In this context, we have developed an initiative to disseminate content through TikTok in three modules of the Bachelor's Degree in Nursing course, with the aim of promoting quality learning through these microlearning environments. To this end, we have implemented these learning environments and evaluated the users' perceptions, as well as their level of acceptance of the technology according to the Technology Acceptance Model. Overall, our results show high levels of satisfaction with regard to engagement and the content generated, as well as in terms of the acceptance of the technology. Our results do not show gender-specific variations, but we did detect slight variations depending on the subject in which the microlearning tool was deployed. Although for the most part these variations do not change the participants' assessment of their experience, it will be necessary in the future to determine the underlying reasons for these variations. In addition, our results suggest that it is possible to design a content creation system to promote quality learning through microlearning that can be transferred to other subjects, at least in the Bachelor's Degree in Nursing.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10639-023-11904-4.

Rationale and Methods of Evaluation for ACHO, A New Virtual Assistant to Improve Therapeutic Adherence in Rural Elderly Populations: A User-Driven Living Lab

Low therapeutic adherence is a concern for health professionals as it decreases therapeutic efficiency while increasing costs, especially in elderly populations. To increase therapeutic adherence in elderly populations, the technology applied in the medical devices that are used must be adapted to improve usability. This paper outlines the rationale behind, and methods applied to assess the usability of, ACHO (Assistant on Care and Health Offline), a voice assistant that provides elderly patients with reminders of medical appointments to attend and when they need to take their medication. This work is a descriptive, cross-sectional, observational study, and will include a three-phase (analysis, testing and refinement) multidimensional usability analysis of an initial prototype, in the setting of a user-driven Living Lab, which enables the needs and characteristics of the end users to be identified and incorporated into the prototype with each iteration, in which a multidisciplinary team of researchers and users will participate as co-creators. This methodology will allow us to develop a better prototype, increasing usability and, thus, increasing therapeutic adherence.

Treatment Adherence in Chronic Conditions during Ageing: Uses, Functionalities, and Cultural Adaptation of the Assistant on Care and Health Offline (ACHO) in Rural Areas

The increasingly common scenario of an ageing population is related to a rise in the prevalence of problems associated with chronic conditions and comorbidities. Polypharmacy is frequent among this population, and it is a situation that can create medication management and adherence issues. This article introduces the features and functionalities of a voice assistant (Assistant on Health and Care Offline, ACHO) that aims to facilitate treatment adherence among elderly adults. Specifically adapted for its use in rural contexts, it does not require an Internet connection. Its development consisted of two stages: a first stage of problem diagnosis, in which the classic tools of ethnographic fieldwork were used, and a second stage of design implementing methodologies developed by Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) programmes. The main design characteristic of this new digital care system is that it is adapted to the needs of its end-users. It includes features such as voice customisation and the personal identification of medication, it can be connected to other digital devices, and information is introduced and supervised by healthcare professionals. These custom features introduce a safer medication administration procedure, improve supervision strategies, and increase patients' trust in the prescription process.