A Blog Literacy Level Project: Analyzing the Relationship Between FOAMed Resource Characteristics in Blog Posts and Knowledge Dissemination

Abstract

Introduction: Growing evidence supports the use of social media in medical education. An important benefit is customization of the learning environment to fit individual needs. Few investigators, however, have examined the design and stylistic characteristics of Free Open Access Medical Education (FOAMed) resources. In the present project, we attempt to identify the ideal reading level of FOAMed blog posts that allows for an optimal intersection of accessibility and credibility. We hypothesize that an optimal reading level will appeal to consumers of FOAMed resources and support dissemination of knowledge. Methods: We collected posts from the BoringEM.org blog; a multi-author, peerreviewed emergency medicine FOAMed blog. Posts are written and edited by medical students, residents and staff physicians; the resulting blog posts vary in literary ease. We collected data from posts published during or after July of 2014. We used Wordpress Page to extract the Flesch Reading Ease score, a measure of literary difficulty. Two weeks following the publication of each post, we used Google Analytics to track the following metrics: page views, unique page views, and cities reached, all markers of dissemination of knowledge. Results: We included 6 months of blog posts (58 articles) in our final analysis. Pearson correlation showed no significant association between Flesch Reading Ease score and number of page views (r = 0.138, p = 0.31), unique page views (r = 0.143, p = 0.29), or number of cities reached (r = -.002, p = 0.99). There was a moderate correlation between word count and number of page views (r = 0.38, p<0.001), and word count and cities reached (r = 0.36, p<0.001). Conclusion: We were not able to identify an optimal reading level for FOAMed posts, as Flesch Reading Ease scores were not correlated with markers of knowledge dissemination. This may be due to the high reading level of medical practitioners participating in online teaching and learning. In the future, subgroup analyses examining the characteristics and clinical levels of our readership may shed important light on the literary characteristics that appeal to these groups.