Developing, Validating, and Implementing a Tool for Measuring the Readiness of Medical Teachers for Online Teaching Post-COVID-19: A Multicenter Study

For years it has been discussed the dichotomy between traditional in-person teaching versus online instruction. The lockdown, consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, gave us an opportunity to gain evidence and compare in-person versus online teaching by the same professor, in the same subject and by the same students which is an interesting scenario because the only variable is the teaching setup. Here, we conducted a survey of students that following a traditional in-person subject were abruptly compelled to continue it online. We summarize the students’ responses when asked to compare both types of teaching with the singularity that the rest of variables were kept constant. Finally, we compared the grades of this “hybrid taught” group of students with the grades from groups of previous years in the same subject, by the same instructor, but totally in-person. We, as medical teachers, were excited about the possibility that the online teaching forced by the Covid-19 pandemic will develop in the system for delivering our lectures in the near future. Even considering that grades were not affected and pros such as comfort and participation, according to our study, students prefer in person education mainly because the direct contact and interaction with peers and teachers.

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Students’ feedback on exclusive 6-months online teaching during COVID-19 lockdown: a cross-sectional survey

International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences ◽

10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20210462 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 655

Author(s):

Ajeet Kumar Khilnani ◽

Rekha Thaddanee ◽

Gurudas Khilnani

Keyword(s):

Human Activities ◽

Online Teaching ◽

Learning Activity ◽

Online Classes ◽

Cross Sectional Survey ◽

Main Mode ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Teachers And Students ◽

Teaching Learning ◽

Medical Teachers

The corona virus pandemic has disrupted the human activities all across the globe and teaching-learning activity is no exception. In India, the nation-wide lockdown was announced in late March, and since then the main mode of undergraduate (UG) medical teaching has been through online classes. This is an unprecedented situation, both for medical teachers and students. Our institute initiated online classes for UG students from as early as mid-March, 2020. It has been more than 6 months of exclusive online teaching now and it was imperative to get overall feedback from students regarding its impact on their learning. It would provide useful inputs regarding utility, efficacy and opportunities to improvise further.

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COVID-19 Pandemics and Impacts on Medical Educators in China (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.25058 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Meiling Chen ◽

Shiqian Zou ◽

Siyi Wang ◽

Babatunde Akinwunmi ◽

Wai-Kit Ming

Keyword(s):

Medical Education ◽

Online Teaching ◽

Mean Value ◽

Descriptive Statistics ◽

Web Based ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Before And After ◽

Medical Educators ◽

Medical Teachers ◽

The Web

BACKGROUND Education informatization is still in the early stage in China. The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led medical educators to passively incorporating information technology for remote medical teaching, in which challenges and opportunities have co-existed. OBJECTIVE The objectives of this study were to (1) explore the medical educators' perception and experience of online teaching in medical education before and after emergency remote teaching (ERT) experience during the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) illustrate the medical educators' satisfaction with the contribution of online teaching on medical teaching, and (3) reveal the main challenges medical educators met when they conduct the ERT during the COVID-19 epidemic, and to demonstrate whether the challenges are different by age or gender including some other factors. METHODS A web-based questionnaire was disseminated to the faculty of medical education departments at higher institutions in China. The collected quantitative data of the questionnaire were analyzed by using the SPSS software package. Descriptive statistics were conducted on demographic data and the perception and experience of medical educators before and after the COVID-19 were shown as the frequencies and percentages, while the teachers' opinions on contribution of online teaching on medical education were analyzed by descriptive statistics with means and standard deviations. Multiple response analysis combined with crosstabulation chi-square test was applied, and a P-value <.05 was considered to be statistically significant to exams the relationship between age as well as gender and difficulties met in online teaching respectively. RESULTS A total of 26 medical educators (65.38%, n=17 female and 34.62%, n=9 male) were valid participants. Total 57.69% (n=15) of them had used web-based teaching before the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas 43.21% (n=11) had not. The agreement level on the teaching effect of online teaching was medium, with a mean value of 2.55 (range from 1-5). The first two difficulties medical teachers came across in online teaching were the web-based instructional design (27%), and the unfamiliarity with web-based teaching tools (25 %). No significant difference in the types of difficulties encountered by different ages (P=0.969) or gender (P = 0.873) in online teaching. CONCLUSIONS A total of 26 medical educators (65.38%, n=17 female and 34.62%, n=9 male) were valid participants. Total 57.69% (n=15) of them had used web-based teaching before the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas 43.21% (n=11) had not. The agreement level on the teaching effect of online teaching was medium, with a mean value of 2.55 (range from 1-5). The first two difficulties medical teachers came across in online teaching were the web-based instructional design (27%) and the unfamiliarity with web-based teaching tools (25 %). No significant difference in the types of difficulties encountered by different ages (P=0.969) or gender (P = 0.873) in online teaching.

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