Journal of Modern Medical

Introduction
Alarge number of users in order to survive and have a safe and productive environment in cyber space need to acquire skills and training, which is referred to as moral literacy. In fact, moral literacy is general awareness of the moral consequences of our actions and attitudes, which is partly related to how we use social media and virtual spaces [9]. It is a practice that tries to bring ethics back to schools in the form of literacy [10]. In the 21st century, man can learn the ethics in the form of moral literacy just as he can acquire technological, reading, writing and mathematical literacy [10, 11]. Since people need to make many moral decisions during their lifetime, it is necessary to pay attention to the concept of moral literacy as part of the programs of educational institutions. According to Tuana’s study, moral literacy includes three dimensions of ethics sensitivity, moral imagination, and ethical reasoning skills [12]. A few studies in Iran have investigated moral literacy in using social media and the conducted studies have considered only its theoretical aspect. Therefore, the current study focused on the practical aspect of moral literacy and aims to measure the three components of moral literacy in using in social networks among post-graduate students of Iran University of Medical Sciences.

Methods
This is a descriptive survey with a cross-sectional design. The study population consists of all students in master’s degree (n=1468) and doctorate degrees (n=776) in all fields of study at Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2019-2020 (total number=2244). Using stratified random sampling and according to the Krejcie & Morgan table, the sample size was determined at 327. The data collection was prepared based on the studies by Tirri et al. , Yurtsever et al. , and Bebeau et al. [18-20]. The designed questionnaire had two parts: The first part surveys demographic information (faculty, gender, age, field of study, names of social networks used, and the number of hours spent using social networks) and the second part measures the level of moral literacy (41 items) with three domains of ethics sensitivity (12 items), moral imagination (18 items), and ethical reasoning (11 items). The items were rated on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (very little) to 5 (very much). Its formal validity was approved by five professors of the department of medical library and information. The Cronbach’s α was obtained 0.829, 0.817, 0.809, 0.818 for the components of ethics sensitivity, ethical reasoning, moral imagination, and the overall scale, respectively. Data analysis was done in SPSS software, version 24 using descriptive statistics (mean, percentage and frequency, and standard deviation) and one-way ANOVA to examine the difference in the mean scores of three components of moral literacy.

Results
Twenty types of social networks had been used by the participants, 4 national and 16 international networks. Among these 20 types, two were scientific social networks (LinkedIn and ResearchGate) and 18 were public networks. The independent t-test results showed that the mean score of moral literacy was not statistically significant between female and male students (P>0.05). The one-way ANOVA results showed that the mean moral literacy score of students was statistically significant between different age groups (P<0.05). The mean score of moral literacy (3.58) was higher than the assumed average score (i.e. 3). The means of three components of ethics sensitivity (3.75), ethical reasoning (3.64) and moral imagination (3.36) were also higher than the average level.

Conclusion
The moral literacy of post-graduate students of Iran University of Medical Sciences for using social networks are higher the average level. Among the components of moral literacy, the highest mean score was related to ethical reasoning, followed by ethics sensitivity and moral imagination. These students tend to acquire moral literacy, to be more aware of ethical principles in using social networks.

Ethical Considerations

Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Iran University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.IUMS.REC.1399.422).

Funding
The present article was extracted from the master's thesis of Zahra Akbari, approved by Department of Medical Library and Information Science, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences (Grand No.:1-99-37-18475).

Authors' contributions
Conceptualization: Zahra Akbari; Methodology: Samira Soleymanpour and Zahra Akbari; Investigation: Shahram Sedgi, Samira Soleymabpour, and Zahra Akbari; Writing–Original draft: Zahra Akbari and Samira Soleymanpour; Writing–Review & Editing: Shahram Sedgi, Samira Soleymabpour, and Zahra Akbari; Funding Acquisition: Shahram Sedgi, Samira Soleymabpour, and Zahra Akbari; Resources: Samira Soleymabpour and Zahra Akbari; Supervision: Shahram Sedgi and Samira Soleymabpour.

Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.