Effect of Social Media Usage on Research Competences and Completion 1 during COVID-19: Case of Pre-Service Health Sciences Researchers

37 Introduction: Pandemic has proved to be a game-changer for higher education. The emerging 38 context of using different social media tools for timely completion of their graduate and 39 postgraduate research is evident among health sciences pre-service researchers during the 40 pandemic. 41 42 Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with health sciences preservice researchers 43 (n=410) enrolled in postgraduate health sciences programs of the Pakistani universities. The Vitae 44 (2011) framework was considered to measure research competences of the pre-service researchers 45 with the factors of personal effectiveness (PE), research knowledge and intellectual abilities (KI), 46 research and governance (RG), and researcher's engagement and influence (EI) to disseminate 47 research. Conclusions explicitly focused on using Social Media are drawn from the Structure 48 Equation Model obtained via Smart PLS. 49 50 Results: The findings have highlighted that preservice health sciences researchers used different 51 forms of social media to support their research completion during COVID-19. Multimedia tools 52 helped pre-service researchers to share information through audio, video, and image sharing 53 service on various networks. Information management tools such as google docs and monkey 54 surveys were useful for data collection during COVID-19. 55 56 Conclusion: This study implicated that different forms of social media tools helped health 57 sciences pre-service researchers develop their research competences, such as personal 58 effectiveness, research governance, and research engagement, which ultimately influenced them 59 to complete their research tasks on time in pandemics. 60 61 63


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The social chaos of COVID-19 had effect on education as well. It had a drastic effect on the world 72 economy, higher education across the world has also turned topsy-turvy. Higher education is the source 73 of the knowledge economy; therefore, its continuation was a big challenge. Hence, medical and health 74 workers and students were also at the forefront against COVID-19; their education, especially timely 75 completion of research, has been drastically affected. The education and research in health sciences 76 were of utmost importance for two reasons; prepare health researchers against the pandemic and for 77 research pandemic prevention and cure. The Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan advised 78 all universities and higher education Institutions to switch to online mode so that the continuation of 79 education was not compromised.

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The term "Social Media"(SM) refers to "the online technologies and practices that people use 81 to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives" (1). ResearchGate, Mendeley, Google 82 Scholar, LinkedIn, Academia, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ were the most frequently used SM sites 83 by graduate students for academic purposes (2). According to a recent estimate, social media is 84 increasingly becoming popular globally; more than 2.65 billion people were SM users, whereas this 85 figure is expected to cross 3 billion by 2021 (3). Such rapid growth in SM users indicates that SM has 86 vast potential for knowledge sharing and networking (4). SM's use in health sciences is also extensive; 87 customers of the health sector may use it to get better information about health services, get reviews on 88 some therapeutic methods, or share their personal experiences about a health service (5

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An instrument of social media usage for research by Duman (22) was adopted to conduct the 153 survey. The instrument usage permission was taken from the author. A 5-point Likert type scale was 154 used to measure the factors ranging from 1= strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree.

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The data were entered into SPSS software. Data screening was performed for outliers and 156 missing values. Robustness of the data was performed for the heterogeneity, endogeneity, and non-157 linearity. PLS-Smart software was used to assess the confirmatory factor analysis, reliability, and 158 validity of the questionnaire (see appendix A) to proceed for mediation analysis at a bootstrapping level 159 5000.

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The descriptive statistics showed that all factors were towards an agreement with normal skewness and 163 kurtosis values (-1.96> x <1.96; see Table 1).

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According to Hu and Bentler (25) suggestion, the model fit indices (NFI<.07 and SRMR>0.9) 175 were found satisfactory (see Table 3). The SEM relations were studied for path coefficient and specific in-direct effects (see Figure 2). The path-coefficient, and relevant t-values at a bootstrap level 5000 were measured.

Implications 285
Graduate education is not free and costs highly to its customers; developing countries and their 286 universities have limited resources to expand their research resources. The research is a much-wanted 287 product for a university's reputation and seeks higher worldwide rankings (43, 44). Timely completion 288 of the degree is obligatory in Pakistan; otherwise, its cost may rise inexplicably. Mostly, in the COVID-289 19 scenario, the pre-service researchers who could connect with their supervisors were able to continue 290 their research. It was not a one-time situation; living in turbulent times, the universities must gear up 291 their staff and students to meet such challenges in the future. Higher education itself is slowly moving 292 towards emergent technologies for online and blended learning through social media networks.

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Ethics approval and consent to participate 295 The data collection in the present study was conducted after the approval of Universitat Oberta de 296 Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain ethics committee dated 20 May 2020. We confirm that all methods used 297 in this study were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The 13 participation of students was completely voluntary and informed consent was obtained from all 299 participants or, if participants are under 18, from a parent and/or legal guardian.

Competing Interest 313
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Funding 315 The author(s) received no financial support for the research.