A meme-based approach for enhancing student engagement and learning in renal physiology

Abstract

As educators around the world are exploring new approaches to keep students involved in remote learning during the pandemic, we investigated the utility of memes in promoting engagement in the online environment. Medical students enrolled in human physiology course at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Sohar, Oman were provided with an option to create memes related to the learning outcomes in renal physiology. 146 out of 280 students chose to create memes (52%) and the remaining students chose to submit either a labelled diagram or a concept map. Students uploaded their work in the discussion forum of the learning management system. All students enrolled in the course were given an opportunity for interaction with the uploaded content by commenting and upvoting thereafter. Students were requested to give anonymous feedback on their experience specifically on the activity related to memes. Feedback received from 142 out of 280 students through anonymous comments were subjected to thematic analysis. Based on the analysis of the data, we found that memes elicited interest in the topic, facilitated peer interaction, simplified complex ideas, enhanced retention of associated concepts and fostered a positive learning environment.

Usability of Memes and Humorous Resources in Virtual Learning Environments

“…Regarding the use of memes in virtual environments, the results obtained confirm that the professors' assessment is high in general (Section 3.3). In this sense, the results are in line with those of other similar studies conducted in traditional learning environments [39,53,58]. This study also shows that the area of knowledge is once again a discriminating variable in the perception of professors in this regard, with Humanities and Social Sciences professors giving the highest value to memes in virtual environments.…”

“…In the specialized literature on the use of humor in higher education classrooms, there is an abundance of research based on the description of specific classroom experiences and the analysis of learning outcomes derived from the use of humor and student perception [51][52][53][54], both in traditional and virtual environments [55]. All of them coincide with highlighting the interest of humorous resources for the understanding of complex concepts and for increasing student motivation, especially in VLEs.…”

“Aprendizagem Baseada em Memes”: criatividade, afeto e cuidado em um componente curricular de Saúde Coletiva

“…Os memes são recursos concebidos para transmitir informações sobre um contexto cultural relacionável associado ao humor inteligente, características que os tornam um importante instrumento de comunicação no meio digital 14 . Na experiência compartilhada neste relato, os discentes aplicaram essa ferramenta nos aprendizados do módulo de Saúde Coletiva, os quais abordavam a problematização de conceitos de saúde com vista à melhor compreensão do processo saúde-doença, além de conceitos como promoção da saúde, salutogênese, modalidades de prevenção de agravos e educação popular em saúde.…”

Student‐generated memes as a way to facilitate online discussion for adult learners

“…The authors used inductive open coding analysis for the second round while comparing notes to identify major themes. Lastly, we finalized the themes for the final write‐up (Thornberg & Charmaz, 2014) to ensure the study's robust and compelling results (Yin, 2014). Figure 2 presents the rationale and progress of the case design and data analysis.…”

“…This tool also displays innovative and entertaining ways of expressing learners' emotions on a specific topic (Kayali & Altuntas, 2021). Subbiramaniyan et al (2021) encouraged college students to create memes to creatively explain their understanding of learning content and concepts, particularly on an online discussion board. Their study showed that memes could elicit interest in the learning topic, facilitate peer interactions, simplify complex ideas, enhance retention of the associated concepts, and foster a positive online learning environment.…”