ArticleBMC medical education2025
Experiences with online group work among master's students in health sciences: a qualitative study.
Article in BMC medical education, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundGroup work is commonly used in health science education to foster active learning and developing teamwork skills. Following the online transition in higher education, group work is increasingly conducted online. Although, group work offers online students a valuable arena to interact with and learn from fellow students, research indicates challenges for successful online collaboration. Few studies have focused on facilitators and barriers to online group work as their primary objective, and even fewer within health sciences providing in-depth knowledge of the students' perspective. Therefore, we aimed to explore health science master's students' experiences of facilitators and barriers to online group work.
methodsWe conducted individual interviews with master's students in health sciences enrolled at a Norwegian university. The interviews were conducted from May 13th, 2022, through September 5th, 2022, by videoconference. A semi-structured interview guide was used, and the interviews were analysed guided by Reflexive Thematic Analysis by Braun and Clark.
resultsFourteen students from eight different health science master's programmes were interviewed. From the analysis we developed three main themes: "Participating in online group work - a matter of priority", "Students' need for continuity in the group" and "Finding the flow in online group work". These were further described in eight subthemes: "The duality of flexibility" and "The need for valid reasons to prioritise participation", "The need to get to know the others", "The need to feel safe in the group", "Shared responsibility in participation", "Mastering communication", "Technical infrastructure and competences", and "Clear assignments and guidance".
conclusionsBased on our findings we believe online group work needs to be adapted to the specific demands of the online setting and have several proposals. One may consider making elements of the group work mandatory to provide continuity in the group. Allocating time for groups to get to know each other and introducing basic guidelines for online group work may foster good group dynamics. Also using assignments that promote shared effort, clearly outlining how the students may benefit from participating, may promote group processes that enhance learning and satisfaction. Hopefully this may encourage students to prioritise participation in online group work.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.