Assessment of online teaching–learning during coronavirus disease-19 pandemic: Medical students' perspective

Abstract

Background: During the corona virus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic, most of the medical schools across the world has started to transfer the curriculum from face-to-face to online delivery using various virtual platforms for undergraduate teaching without any uniformity. It is imperative to understand the students' outlook about the current online teaching in order to make it more effective. This study was planned to gain an insight into the medical students' perspective toward online teaching–learning program and the challenges faced by them toward the same. Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted for 3 months at a medical college in Chengalpet district, Tamil Nadu, among 351 medical students across all professional years. The Google form platform was used to administer a semi-structured questionnaire to all the participants to obtain information related to various parameters of online teaching-learning. The statistical analysis was done using frequency and percentages. Results: A total of 351 students participated in this study, including 134 males and 217 females. Almost 318 (90.6%) perceived that online classes were able to cover academic portion amidst COVID-19 pandemic. The most common challenges found were network related issues, lack of practical sessions, including dissection and lack of exposure to clinical cases cited by 181 (90%), 77 (38.3%) and 72 (35.8%) participants, respectively. Conclusions: The study reveals the perspectives of medical students on online teaching–learning sessions and identifies important challenges pertaining to it. However, the positive overall experience by the students provides confidence to the medical education fraternity in the entire process of online teaching and learning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.