Using Twitter in a Nonscience Major Science Class Increases Students' Use of Reputable Science Sources in Class Discussions.

Nonscience majors often rely on general internet searches to locate science information. This practice can lead to misconceptions because the returned search information can be unreliable. We used the social media site Twitter to address this problem in our general education course, BSCI 421 Diseases of the 21st Century. For this intervention, the course instructor modeled the use of reputable science sources (e.g., The Scientist, CDC.gov) by following these sources on Twitter and using these sources in her own tweets to the class. Pretest results asking students how they found credible science information demonstrated that students relied on general Google searches (84%), but after the Twitter intervention, this reliance decreased (40%; p < .01) in favor of using reputable science sources. Students use of CDC.gov increased significantly from 36% to 96% (p < .01) and use of science periodicals from 12% to 52% (p < .01). Nearly all students (96%) stated that they would continue to use these same reliable sources after completing the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]